Are you a health care worker? We?d love to hear from you. Email editor at northcarolinahealthnews.org By Taylor Knopf One of the largest allocations for substance use disorder treatment in the recently enacted state budget ? $10 million ? is going to a new nonprofit set up by a church in Robeson County, home to […]
The post Targeting the opioid crisis, NC lawmakers give $10M to new church ministry first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:29441:"Are you a health care worker? We?d love to hear from you. Email editor at northcarolinahealthnews.org
One of the largest allocations for substance use disorder treatment in the recently enacted state budget ? $10 million ? is going to a new nonprofit set up by a church in Robeson County, home to one of the most powerful Republicans in the state senate.
The nonprofit, called Hope Alive Inc., is a ministry of Greater Hope International Church in Lumberton. Its lead pastor, Ron Barnes, told his congregation during a Sunday service on Nov. 21, which was live streamed on Facebook, that Hope Alive received a grant to open an ?82-bed drug addiction rehab facility.?
There?s no evidence on the six-year-old church?s website to suggest it has experience in treating addiction disorders, and the church failed to respond to multiple media requests for details of the nonprofit?s plans.
More than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses during the pandemic between April 2020 and April 2021, the largest number recorded for a 12-month period, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Substance use experts argue that, at a time where a record-breaking number of people are dying of drug overdoses, state money should be directed to clinics and organizations with a track record of providing evidence-based addiction treatment, including medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder.
Providing MAT to patients requires special medical licensing, which many church-run drug treatment programs do not have.
?It?s really infuriating to see $10 million going somewhere that doesn?t have any details attached to it,? said Jamie Carter, primary care and addiction medicine physician at Lincoln Community Health Center in Durham. At Carter?s facility, which didn?t receive money from the state budget for addiction treatment, patients historically would miss MAT appointments because they struggled to scrounge up the $10 needed for their copay. Currently, her patients? copays are being covered by a temporary grant set to expire next year, but she said there are patients at other community health centers in the state that still struggle to afford copays.
?That amount of money ($10 million) could cover the costs of copays for patients through all the community health centers in the state for years, I would imagine,? she said.
It?s unclear what kind of treatment Hope Alive will provide with the $10 million grant. NC Health News reached out to Greater Hope International Church multiple times by phone, email and Facebook to learn more details about Hope Alive?s plans for its drug treatment facility, but no one responded at the time of publication.
NC Health News sought information about Hope Alive from the office of State Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) which led budget negotiations for the chamber. His office directed us to state Sen. Danny Britt (R-Lumberton), since it?s in his district.
 100vw, 319px” data-recalc-dims=”1″/>North Carolina state Sen. Danny Earl Britt, Jr., Republican from Robeson County. Photo courtesy of the NC General Assembly</p>
<p>Britt is a rising Republican star who has said he?s considering a run for the statewide office of attorney general in 2024. He also has not responded to multiple email, phone and text message requests for comment on this story.</p>
<h4><strong>?Honoring our faith?</strong></h4>
<p>Pastor Barnes said he established Hope Alive in July 2020 because the Lord spoke to him through prayer and told him to ?form a separate benevolence outreach ministry? Barnes explained from the church pulpit as music played and the worship team swayed behind him. </p>
<p>Both entities use the same mailing address. While Hope Alive has no website, Greater Hope International Church has a prolific online presence. The church and Barnes have very active Facebook pages with thousands of friends and followers, a YouTube channel, an Instagram account and a radio broadcast in Robeson County. </p>
<p>Barnes is Facebook ?friends? with Sen. Britt and several other Britts. The pastor doesn?t appear to be connected on Facebook to the two other state lawmakers who represent Robeson County in the state legislature.</p>
<p>?God said I?m going to do something to blow people?s mind. And let me tell you something, my mind got blown this week,? Barnes told his congregation the Sunday after the state budget deal was announced. ?There?s been some work going on, and we?ve been doing some things but [?] Hope Alive was granted $11 million (sic) for drug rehab.? </p>
<p>During his Sunday morning announcement, Barnes did not include that the grant was from the state government.</p>
<p>?Don?t take me as bragging, but yes I am,? the pastor continued. ?No other church, no other ministry in this county has ever stepped out on faith like this. God is honoring our faith.?</p>
<p>Robeson County certainly has a need for substance use treatment services. The county had the highest rate of emergency department visits for drug overdoses in the state last year at 495 per 100,000 people and the second-highest rate of overdose death at 62 per 100,000 people.</p>
<p><img data-attachment-id=)
While program funding to address substance use disorder plays a crucial role in treating addiction, it?s not the only piece of the puzzle, according to Sarah Potter, director of Addiction Professionals of NC.
?Increasing funding does not improve the system?s infrastructure. The reality is that the behavioral health workforce is dwindling due to secondary trauma and burnout,? she said.
Potter noted that overdose deaths have continued to rise for the last 15 years, but she said the workforce cannot keep up with the demand.
 packages naloxone kits with volunteers at the state?s Opioid summit in June 2017. Photo credit: Taylor Knopf</p>
<p>” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?fit=280%2C158&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?fit=450%2C254&ssl=1″ loading=”lazy” width=”780″ height=”440″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=780%2C440&ssl=1″ alt=”” class=”wp-image-36655″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=280%2C158&ssl=1 280w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=450%2C254&ssl=1 450w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=150%2C85&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C433&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C866&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1155&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C676&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=1568%2C884&ssl=1 1568w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?resize=400%2C225&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSCF8947-scaled.jpg?w=2340&ssl=1 2340w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px” data-recalc-dims=”1″/>Harm reduction worker Colin Miller (at the end of the table in a black T-shirt) packages naloxone kits with volunteers at the state?s Opioid Summit in June 2017. Photo credit: Taylor Knopf</p>
<p>?Funding is only as good as you have professionals to help. With the significant strain on our frontline addiction and mental health workers ? who are traditionally overworked and underpaid ? our workforce is in dire need of help,? she said. ?Yes, more funds are needed but the field cannot use the funds effectively without a sufficient number of healthy and capable workers.</p>
<p>She applauded state lawmakers for increased addiction funding in the budget but criticized them for the nearly five-month delay in approving the funds.</p>
<p>?While legislators went back and forth with negotiation, service providers went without much-needed support, delaying projects and work across the state,? she said.</p>
<p>*Correction: The reference to Lincoln Community Health Center was updated to reflect a temporary grant the center received to cover patients? MAT copays. </p>
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Are you a health care worker? We?d love to hear from you. Email editor at northcarolinahealthnews.org By Taylor Knopf One of the largest allocations for substance use disorder treatment in the recently enacted state budget ? $10 million ? is going to a new nonprofit set up by a church in Robeson County, home to […]
The post Targeting the opioid crisis, NC lawmakers give $10M to new church ministry first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:29441:"Are you a health care worker? We?d love to hear from you. Email editor at northcarolinahealthnews.org
One of the largest allocations for substance use disorder treatment in the recently enacted state budget ? $10 million ? is going to a new nonprofit set up by a church in Robeson County, home to one of the most powerful Republicans in the state senate.
The nonprofit, called Hope Alive Inc., is a ministry of Greater Hope International Church in Lumberton. Its lead pastor, Ron Barnes, told his congregation during a Sunday service on Nov. 21, which was live streamed on Facebook, that Hope Alive received a grant to open an ?82-bed drug addiction rehab facility.?
There?s no evidence on the six-year-old church?s website to suggest it has experience in treating addiction disorders, and the church failed to respond to multiple media requests for details of the nonprofit?s plans.
More than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses during the pandemic between April 2020 and April 2021, the largest number recorded for a 12-month period, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Substance use experts argue that, at a time where a record-breaking number of people are dying of drug overdoses, state money should be directed to clinics and organizations with a track record of providing evidence-based addiction treatment, including medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder.
Providing MAT to patients requires special medical licensing, which many church-run drug treatment programs do not have.
?It?s really infuriating to see $10 million going somewhere that doesn?t have any details attached to it,? said Jamie Carter, primary care and addiction medicine physician at Lincoln Community Health Center in Durham. At Carter?s facility, which didn?t receive money from the state budget for addiction treatment, patients historically would miss MAT appointments because they struggled to scrounge up the $10 needed for their copay. Currently, her patients? copays are being covered by a temporary grant set to expire next year, but she said there are patients at other community health centers in the state that still struggle to afford copays.
?That amount of money ($10 million) could cover the costs of copays for patients through all the community health centers in the state for years, I would imagine,? she said.
It?s unclear what kind of treatment Hope Alive will provide with the $10 million grant. NC Health News reached out to Greater Hope International Church multiple times by phone, email and Facebook to learn more details about Hope Alive?s plans for its drug treatment facility, but no one responded at the time of publication.
NC Health News sought information about Hope Alive from the office of State Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) which led budget negotiations for the chamber. His office directed us to state Sen. Danny Britt (R-Lumberton), since it?s in his district.
While program funding to address substance use disorder plays a crucial role in treating addiction, it?s not the only piece of the puzzle, according to Sarah Potter, director of Addiction Professionals of NC.
?Increasing funding does not improve the system?s infrastructure. The reality is that the behavioral health workforce is dwindling due to secondary trauma and burnout,? she said.
Potter noted that overdose deaths have continued to rise for the last 15 years, but she said the workforce cannot keep up with the demand.
![author['full_name']](https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/kristenMonaco_188.jpg)
New use of stimulants and anxiolytic / sedative-hypnotics in Canadian children has suffered a significant slump during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the flip side, the new use of antidepressants in children rose by the end of 2020 – and exceeded pre-pandemic levels. (JAMA Pediatrics) Depression was associated with an increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation […]
The post Fewer Benzos Prescribed to Kids; Teva Liable for Opioid Crisis; Food Addictions? first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:2938:"New use of stimulants and anxiolytic / sedative-hypnotics in Canadian children has suffered a significant slump during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the flip side, the new use of antidepressants in children rose by the end of 2020 – and exceeded pre-pandemic levels. (JAMA Pediatrics)
Depression was associated with an increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation in a South Korean cohort of over 5 million adults. (JAMA network open)
A New York State jury held Teva Pharmaceuticals responsible for its involvement in the opioid crisis. (The New York Times)
In similar news, could virtual opioid use disorder treatment restrictions and regulations be hindering care soon? (NPR)
Over in England the number of hospitalizations for child eating disorders has soared over the past year that the NHS is no longer able to handle every case. (The guard)
Is the Obesity Epidemic Really Just a Food Addiction? (The hill)
Mental health platform Total Brain announced that it will license its research data from the International Study Predicting Optimized Treatment for Depression (iSPOT-D) to Alto Neuroscience for use in the development of its depression products.
The University of North Carolina received a $ 3.9 million 5-year scholarship to study the effects of estradiol on reward circuit function in a transdiagnostic sample of women with perimenopausal anhedonia and psychosis.
The post Fewer Benzos Prescribed to Kids; Teva Liable for Opioid Crisis; Food Addictions? first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";}s:7:"summary";s:1184:"New use of stimulants and anxiolytic / sedative-hypnotics in Canadian children has suffered a significant slump during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the flip side, the new use of antidepressants in children rose by the end of 2020 – and exceeded pre-pandemic levels. (JAMA Pediatrics) Depression was associated with an increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation […]
The post Fewer Benzos Prescribed to Kids; Teva Liable for Opioid Crisis; Food Addictions? first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:2938:"New use of stimulants and anxiolytic / sedative-hypnotics in Canadian children has suffered a significant slump during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the flip side, the new use of antidepressants in children rose by the end of 2020 – and exceeded pre-pandemic levels. (JAMA Pediatrics)
Depression was associated with an increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation in a South Korean cohort of over 5 million adults. (JAMA network open)
A New York State jury held Teva Pharmaceuticals responsible for its involvement in the opioid crisis. (The New York Times)
In similar news, could virtual opioid use disorder treatment restrictions and regulations be hindering care soon? (NPR)
Over in England the number of hospitalizations for child eating disorders has soared over the past year that the NHS is no longer able to handle every case. (The guard)
Is the Obesity Epidemic Really Just a Food Addiction? (The hill)
Mental health platform Total Brain announced that it will license its research data from the International Study Predicting Optimized Treatment for Depression (iSPOT-D) to Alto Neuroscience for use in the development of its depression products.
The University of North Carolina received a $ 3.9 million 5-year scholarship to study the effects of estradiol on reward circuit function in a transdiagnostic sample of women with perimenopausal anhedonia and psychosis.
The post Fewer Benzos Prescribed to Kids; Teva Liable for Opioid Crisis; Food Addictions? first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1641490645;}i:2;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:58:"New York jury holds drug firm Teva liable in opioid crisis";s:4:"link";s:89:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/new-york-jury-holds-drug-firm-teva-liable-in-opioid-crisis/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:20:"Opioid News and Talk";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Wed, 05 Jan 2022 17:40:02 +0000";s:8:"category";s:56:"Opioid CrisiscrisisDrugfirmHoldsjuryLiableopioidTevaYork";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/?p=3412";s:11:"description";s:1149:"
From: Associated Press December 30, 2021 A jury held Teva Pharmaceuticals responsible for its contribution to the opioid crisis. Enter your username and password in the fields above to access subscriber content on this site. Your subscription includes a set of login details for your exclusive use. Security functions have been integrated on this site: […]
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December 30, 2021
A jury held Teva Pharmaceuticals responsible for its contribution to the opioid crisis.
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From: Associated Press December 30, 2021 A jury held Teva Pharmaceuticals responsible for its contribution to the opioid crisis. Enter your username and password in the fields above to access subscriber content on this site. Your subscription includes a set of login details for your exclusive use. Security functions have been integrated on this site: […]
The post New York jury holds drug firm Teva liable in opioid crisis first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:2592:"
December 30, 2021
A jury held Teva Pharmaceuticals responsible for its contribution to the opioid crisis.
Enter your username and password in the fields above to access subscriber content on this site.
Your subscription includes a set of login details for your exclusive use. Security functions have been integrated on this site: If someone logs in with your access data while you are logged in, the site automatically closes your current login and you will lose your access at this point.
Contact Tracy Bumba for information about group subscriptions or a corporate site license for your organization.
If you think your login information is being used by a second party, please contact Customer Service at 877-615-9536 for help changing your password.
Are you already a paying subscriber but not yet registered for online access? For instructions on how to get premium web access, click here.
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Colorado is well on its way to receiving roughly $ 385 million from legal settlements reached with Johnson & Johnson and three of the country’s largest drug distributors for their role in fueling the opioid epidemic, the Attorney General of said Colorado on Tuesday with. The total represents Colorado’s share of the payout in a […]
The post Colorado on track to receive $385 million from settlements over opioid epidemic | News first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:5149:"Colorado is well on its way to receiving roughly $ 385 million from legal settlements reached with Johnson & Johnson and three of the country’s largest drug distributors for their role in fueling the opioid epidemic, the Attorney General of said Colorado on Tuesday with.
The total represents Colorado’s share of the payout in a $ 26 billion class action lawsuit that is expected to close later this year. Every Colorado county and almost every parish has approved the settlements and a fund distribution plan, Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a press release.
“By bringing together this amazing support from the local government well in advance of the January 26 filing deadline, Colorado is demonstrating its collaborative solution culture and commitment to fighting the opioid epidemic,” Weiser said in a statement. As a result, we as a state will be ready to to implement our opioid response plan once the settlement funds arrive in our state. “
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 2000 to 2020, more than 7,600 Coloradans died of opioid overdoses, and countless others suffered from addictions. Preliminary data released last month showed the state’s 2021 death toll from overdoses is well on the way to dwarfing the previous year’s total.
Under the distribution agreement, most of the funds from the settlements are dedicated to drug treatment, recovery, prevention, education and harm reduction programs. The money should arrive later that year, with the bulk of Johnson & Johnson’s dollars being paid out in the first three years of a nine-year schedule. The funds of the drug dealers are paid out over 18 years, said Weiser’s office.
The state has already received approximately $ 8.2 million from a nearly $ 10 million settlement reached with consultancy McKinsey & Co. for its role as “turbo-charging” the opioid epidemic by helping drug makers helped market the drugs and benefit from the epidemic, Weiser’s office told Colorado Politics. Weiser filed a lawsuit in multiple states that resulted in a $ 573 million settlement with McKinsey a year ago.
In a statement last July announcing the conclusion of a statewide settlement agreement to settle opioid-related claims, Johnson & Johnson said this was “not an admission of liability or misconduct and the company will continue to defend itself against any litigation that the final agreement does not dissolve. “
Johnson & Johnson said it is no longer selling prescription opioid drugs in the US as part of its “continued effort to focus on transformative innovation and meet unmet patient needs.” The company added that its drugs accounted for less than 1% of total opioid prescriptions in the United States
Weiser on Monday praised local government officials, including Colorado Counties Inc. and the Colorado Municipal League, for their work in developing the common framework, which required “significant involvement” from local institutions so that all parties received maximum payments. The framework released by the Attorney General’s office last summer also regulates the distribution of funds from future settlements related to the opioid crisis.
“This type of collaboration and partnership is the way government should function and has been modeled well by the attorney general,” said John Swartout, executive director of Colorado Counties Inc., in a statement.
The executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, Kevin Bommer, thanked Weiser for brokering the agreement and called it “state-local partnership at its finest”.
The post Colorado on track to receive $385 million from settlements over opioid epidemic | News first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";}s:7:"summary";s:1238:"Colorado is well on its way to receiving roughly $ 385 million from legal settlements reached with Johnson & Johnson and three of the country’s largest drug distributors for their role in fueling the opioid epidemic, the Attorney General of said Colorado on Tuesday with. The total represents Colorado’s share of the payout in a […]
The post Colorado on track to receive $385 million from settlements over opioid epidemic | News first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:5149:"Colorado is well on its way to receiving roughly $ 385 million from legal settlements reached with Johnson & Johnson and three of the country’s largest drug distributors for their role in fueling the opioid epidemic, the Attorney General of said Colorado on Tuesday with.
The total represents Colorado’s share of the payout in a $ 26 billion class action lawsuit that is expected to close later this year. Every Colorado county and almost every parish has approved the settlements and a fund distribution plan, Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a press release.
“By bringing together this amazing support from the local government well in advance of the January 26 filing deadline, Colorado is demonstrating its collaborative solution culture and commitment to fighting the opioid epidemic,” Weiser said in a statement. As a result, we as a state will be ready to to implement our opioid response plan once the settlement funds arrive in our state. “
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 2000 to 2020, more than 7,600 Coloradans died of opioid overdoses, and countless others suffered from addictions. Preliminary data released last month showed the state’s 2021 death toll from overdoses is well on the way to dwarfing the previous year’s total.
Under the distribution agreement, most of the funds from the settlements are dedicated to drug treatment, recovery, prevention, education and harm reduction programs. The money should arrive later that year, with the bulk of Johnson & Johnson’s dollars being paid out in the first three years of a nine-year schedule. The funds of the drug dealers are paid out over 18 years, said Weiser’s office.
The state has already received approximately $ 8.2 million from a nearly $ 10 million settlement reached with consultancy McKinsey & Co. for its role as “turbo-charging” the opioid epidemic by helping drug makers helped market the drugs and benefit from the epidemic, Weiser’s office told Colorado Politics. Weiser filed a lawsuit in multiple states that resulted in a $ 573 million settlement with McKinsey a year ago.
In a statement last July announcing the conclusion of a statewide settlement agreement to settle opioid-related claims, Johnson & Johnson said this was “not an admission of liability or misconduct and the company will continue to defend itself against any litigation that the final agreement does not dissolve. “
Johnson & Johnson said it is no longer selling prescription opioid drugs in the US as part of its “continued effort to focus on transformative innovation and meet unmet patient needs.” The company added that its drugs accounted for less than 1% of total opioid prescriptions in the United States
Weiser on Monday praised local government officials, including Colorado Counties Inc. and the Colorado Municipal League, for their work in developing the common framework, which required “significant involvement” from local institutions so that all parties received maximum payments. The framework released by the Attorney General’s office last summer also regulates the distribution of funds from future settlements related to the opioid crisis.
“This type of collaboration and partnership is the way government should function and has been modeled well by the attorney general,” said John Swartout, executive director of Colorado Counties Inc., in a statement.
The executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, Kevin Bommer, thanked Weiser for brokering the agreement and called it “state-local partnership at its finest”.
The post Colorado on track to receive $385 million from settlements over opioid epidemic | News first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1641363666;}i:4;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:59:"How Civil War Medicine Led to America?s First Opioid Crisis";s:4:"link";s:89:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/how-civil-war-medicine-led-to-americas-first-opioid-crisis/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:20:"Opioid News and Talk";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Tue, 04 Jan 2022 17:34:13 +0000";s:8:"category";s:52:"Opioid CrisisAmericascivilcrisisledMedicineopioidWar";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/?p=3406";s:11:"description";s:1245:"
During the Civil War, military hospitals viewed opioids as essential medicines. Doctors and nurses used opium and morphine to treat soldiers’ pain, stop internal bleeding, and relieve vomiting and diarrhea caused by infectious diseases. However, this resulted in some soldiers developing opioid addiction, either during or after the war, when seeking medical treatment for wartime […]
The post How Civil War Medicine Led to America?s First Opioid Crisis first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:7170:"During the Civil War, military hospitals viewed opioids as essential medicines. Doctors and nurses used opium and morphine to treat soldiers’ pain, stop internal bleeding, and relieve vomiting and diarrhea caused by infectious diseases. However, this resulted in some soldiers developing opioid addiction, either during or after the war, when seeking medical treatment for wartime injuries or illnesses.
For many veterans of the Civil War, opioid addiction was life-devastating. Dependence on veterans made her tired and emaciated, and could lead to a fatal overdose. In some cases, opioid addiction could jeopardize a veteran’s pension. In 1895, a Union veteran named Charles L. Williams declared in an application to a soldiers’ home that he was “completely unable to earn a living” because he was “dressed” [the] Opium habit during the war. “
By the time Williams applied to the Soldiers’ Home, the scope of the problem had grown beyond veterans: America was in the midst of its first major opioid crisis, fueled by the surge in injectable morphine some doctors had begun to use during the Civil War. The particular plight of the veterans helped raise awareness of the issue and sensitize doctors and the public to the dangers of opioid addiction.
Opioid use has a long history in the United States. Before the Civil War, doctors often prescribed opium pills and laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol. These opiates, or natural opioids, were available at many drug stores without a prescription. When the war began, both the Union and the Confederation felt it was important to supply their hospitals with the medicines. A Confederate medical handbook states: “Opium is the only indispensable drug on the battlefield – important to the surgeon, as gunpowder to the artillery.”
In addition to opium and laudanum, some Union doctors also began using the hypodermic syringe, a relatively new invention, to inject another opioid – morphine – directly into soldiers’ veins.
Union doctor Anson Hurd treated wounded Confederate soldiers after the Battle of Antietam in this makeshift field hospital (September 1862).
CORBIS
These doctors “realized that this invention, which wasn’t really widespread in the United States, could now be a godsend in hospitals because it provides instant morphine,” said Jonathan S. Jones, history professor at the Virginia Military Institute and author of the upcoming Opium Slavery: The Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis. Injectable morphine provided faster relief than opium pills and laudanum, but was also more likely to be addictive.
In addition to soldiers, doctors from the Civil War took opioids themselves to treat infectious diseases and cope with the stress of working in army hospitals, which resulted in them developing addictions before and after the war. A Union surgeon named JM Richards later recalled developing chronic diarrhea during the war and “finally resorting to frequent doses of morphine as the only surefire way to control difficulties.”
Notably, due to the different medical care provided for black and white men, black veterans mostly did not develop opioid addiction. “Overall, black soldiers were systematically denied the same medical care as white soldiers,” says Jones. Doctors did not give black soldiers the same amount of opioids as white soldiers, who – seemingly without irony – described their addiction as “opium slavery.”
When veterans returned home after the war, they continued to take opium and injectable morphine, which became much more readily available in the 1870s.
“By the late 1870s, virtually every American doctor had a hypodermic syringe,” said David T. Courtwright, professor emeritus of history at the University of North Florida and author of Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America. “And after all, that was the main reason for the surge in opiate addiction in the 1870s, 1880s, and early 1890s.”
Jones argues that the Civil War helped mainstream the use of the hypodermic syringe. Doctors who used it during the war taught their colleagues about injectable morphine, which led to more doctors prescribing it to veterans and other patients after the war. The companies became aware of this and began selling injectable morphine directly to consumers.
?It’s easy to get injections and morphine; you could even buy them in the mail at Sears and Roebuck, the department store, ?says Jones (later the Sears and Roebuck catalog also sold heroin). The availability of injectable morphine led to a full blown opioid addiction crisis in the 1880s, and one of the groups that helped highlight that crisis were Civil War veterans, who have been addicted for decades.
In the early 1880s, doctor and noted opioid expert Thomas Davison Crothers met an unnamed Union veteran with opium addiction who had begun taking the drug he developed during the war to treat chronic diarrhea. He told Crothers that he recovered from the disease in two months but kept taking opium for the next two decades.
Crothers found that this man had found it difficult to stop taking opioids because he developed an addiction. Stories like this helped to sway medical thinking about opioid addiction as a public health issue – one that the US has struggled with to this day.
The post How Civil War Medicine Led to America?s First Opioid Crisis first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";}s:7:"summary";s:1245:"During the Civil War, military hospitals viewed opioids as essential medicines. Doctors and nurses used opium and morphine to treat soldiers’ pain, stop internal bleeding, and relieve vomiting and diarrhea caused by infectious diseases. However, this resulted in some soldiers developing opioid addiction, either during or after the war, when seeking medical treatment for wartime […]
The post How Civil War Medicine Led to America?s First Opioid Crisis first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:7170:"During the Civil War, military hospitals viewed opioids as essential medicines. Doctors and nurses used opium and morphine to treat soldiers’ pain, stop internal bleeding, and relieve vomiting and diarrhea caused by infectious diseases. However, this resulted in some soldiers developing opioid addiction, either during or after the war, when seeking medical treatment for wartime injuries or illnesses.
For many veterans of the Civil War, opioid addiction was life-devastating. Dependence on veterans made her tired and emaciated, and could lead to a fatal overdose. In some cases, opioid addiction could jeopardize a veteran’s pension. In 1895, a Union veteran named Charles L. Williams declared in an application to a soldiers’ home that he was “completely unable to earn a living” because he was “dressed” [the] Opium habit during the war. “
By the time Williams applied to the Soldiers’ Home, the scope of the problem had grown beyond veterans: America was in the midst of its first major opioid crisis, fueled by the surge in injectable morphine some doctors had begun to use during the Civil War. The particular plight of the veterans helped raise awareness of the issue and sensitize doctors and the public to the dangers of opioid addiction.
Opioid use has a long history in the United States. Before the Civil War, doctors often prescribed opium pills and laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol. These opiates, or natural opioids, were available at many drug stores without a prescription. When the war began, both the Union and the Confederation felt it was important to supply their hospitals with the medicines. A Confederate medical handbook states: “Opium is the only indispensable drug on the battlefield – important to the surgeon, as gunpowder to the artillery.”
In addition to opium and laudanum, some Union doctors also began using the hypodermic syringe, a relatively new invention, to inject another opioid – morphine – directly into soldiers’ veins.
Union doctor Anson Hurd treated wounded Confederate soldiers after the Battle of Antietam in this makeshift field hospital (September 1862).
CORBIS
These doctors “realized that this invention, which wasn’t really widespread in the United States, could now be a godsend in hospitals because it provides instant morphine,” said Jonathan S. Jones, history professor at the Virginia Military Institute and author of the upcoming Opium Slavery: The Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis. Injectable morphine provided faster relief than opium pills and laudanum, but was also more likely to be addictive.
In addition to soldiers, doctors from the Civil War took opioids themselves to treat infectious diseases and cope with the stress of working in army hospitals, which resulted in them developing addictions before and after the war. A Union surgeon named JM Richards later recalled developing chronic diarrhea during the war and “finally resorting to frequent doses of morphine as the only surefire way to control difficulties.”
Notably, due to the different medical care provided for black and white men, black veterans mostly did not develop opioid addiction. “Overall, black soldiers were systematically denied the same medical care as white soldiers,” says Jones. Doctors did not give black soldiers the same amount of opioids as white soldiers, who – seemingly without irony – described their addiction as “opium slavery.”
When veterans returned home after the war, they continued to take opium and injectable morphine, which became much more readily available in the 1870s.
“By the late 1870s, virtually every American doctor had a hypodermic syringe,” said David T. Courtwright, professor emeritus of history at the University of North Florida and author of Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America. “And after all, that was the main reason for the surge in opiate addiction in the 1870s, 1880s, and early 1890s.”
Jones argues that the Civil War helped mainstream the use of the hypodermic syringe. Doctors who used it during the war taught their colleagues about injectable morphine, which led to more doctors prescribing it to veterans and other patients after the war. The companies became aware of this and began selling injectable morphine directly to consumers.
?It’s easy to get injections and morphine; you could even buy them in the mail at Sears and Roebuck, the department store, ?says Jones (later the Sears and Roebuck catalog also sold heroin). The availability of injectable morphine led to a full blown opioid addiction crisis in the 1880s, and one of the groups that helped highlight that crisis were Civil War veterans, who have been addicted for decades.
In the early 1880s, doctor and noted opioid expert Thomas Davison Crothers met an unnamed Union veteran with opium addiction who had begun taking the drug he developed during the war to treat chronic diarrhea. He told Crothers that he recovered from the disease in two months but kept taking opium for the next two decades.
Crothers found that this man had found it difficult to stop taking opioids because he developed an addiction. Stories like this helped to sway medical thinking about opioid addiction as a public health issue – one that the US has struggled with to this day.
The post How Civil War Medicine Led to America?s First Opioid Crisis first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1641317653;}i:5;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:41:"Biden?s big decision on the opioid crisis";s:4:"link";s:71:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/bidens-big-decision-on-the-opioid-crisis/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:20:"Opioid News and Talk";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 03 Jan 2022 17:32:05 +0000";s:8:"category";s:42:"Opioid CrisisBidensbigcrisisdecisionopioid";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/?p=3404";s:11:"description";s:537:"A deposit box for used hypodermic needles stands in a park in the South Bronx in New York City. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images JUST SAY MAYBE ? Last week New York City became home to the first two sites in the country where drug users can take illegal drugs under the supervision of staff trained […]
The post Biden?s big decision on the opioid crisis first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:16429:"
A deposit box for used hypodermic needles stands in a park in the South Bronx in New York City. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images
JUST SAY MAYBE ? Last week New York City became home to the first two sites in the country where drug users can take illegal drugs under the supervision of staff trained to reverse overdoses. Rhode Island plans to open a similar site next year, under a two-year pilot program. And about a dozen localities are considering the controversial idea, which advocates say can lower overdose deaths but which critics say promotes illegal drug use.
The Trump administration vocally opposed such supervised injections, saying they violated the ?crack house statute? ? legislation that Joe Biden crafted as a senator in the 1980s. So far, the Biden administration has remained silent on whether it would allow the sites to operate.
But in the coming weeks, a lingering Trump administration case against a proposed Philadelphia injection site called Safehouse could force the Biden administration to decide whether it is willing to quietly condone the practice. The Department of Justice is supposed to file a brief stating its position in the case by Jan. 5 ? the department refused to comment to Nightly on its plans. If the Biden administration drops its opposition to Safehouse in court, that would pave the way for more such sites to open up around the country.
Supervised injection sites are just the newest example of how the ongoing overdose death crisis is fraying the bipartisan resolve that developed during the first wave of opioid deaths in the 1990s and 2000s. The sites are also testing the Biden administration?s willingness to dismantle ?war on drugs? policies that often interfere with localities? efforts to lower deaths from drug overdoses.
The opioid crisis is worse than it has ever been, but as it has moved from a prescription drug crisis to a street drug one, it?s become far more complicated ? and controversial ? to solve.
When the opioid overdose crisis was rooted in the realm of prescription drugs there was an easy, agreed-upon villain. Federal and state officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, wanted to crack down on the doctors and pharmacies running pill mills and to file lawsuits against pharma companies for flooding towns with addictive painkillers. The nation directed its ire ? and investigative, award-winning stories, books and documentaries ? at the Sackler family.
Now, the problem has migrated from brand-name pain pills like Oxycontin to illicit street drugs like heroin and, now, mostly fentanyl. Opioid prescriptions plummeted 44.4 percent between 2011 and 2020, yet overdose deaths soared as people suffering from addiction migrated to deadlier alternative highs. Overdose deaths topped 100,000 between April 2020 and April 2021 ? the highest level ever recorded. Deaths are surging among Black and Indigenous populations, in big cities across the country.
Policies designed to stop the pharmaceutical drug crisis could now be backfiring, driving people to street drugs, addiction experts say. That approach of limiting access to powerful painkillers has also made medications used to treat opioid addiction, like methadone and buprenorphine, which are forms of opioids themselves, harder to get.
Patients have gotten arrested for buprenorphine that has prescribed for them, said Daliah Heller, director of drug use initiatives at Vital Strategies. Meanwhile fentanyl is cheap, powerful and ubiquitous, making it a more attractive alternative to someone in withdrawal.
The supervised injection sites in New York and Rhode Island fall into a broad category of policy called harm reduction, which adopts the guiding philosophy of just keeping drug users alive so that they have a chance to seek addiction treatment before they die. Addiction experts say these sorts of policies ? like supplying fresh needles for heroin addicts and strips that help users determine whether their narcotics are laced with fentanyl ? are the country?s best shot of reducing deaths from overdoses. The bulk of the evidence is on their side, they say.
?It works and it improves outcomes,? Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told Nightly about harm reduction broadly. Volkow was optimistic about safe injection sites but said they still needed to be studied.
Even so, backlash to such policies is mounting. The Safehouse site in South Philadelphia is facing opposition in the neighborhood where it was planning to locate.
The Biden administration is trying to tread cautiously, though it is the first administration to embrace harm reduction. Biden?s drug czar, Rahul Gupta, has been criticized for his role in shutting down the state?s largest syringe services program when he ran West Virginia?s health department. These are programs that often get their start underground, operating in legal gray areas first, making them politically problematic, said Leo Beletsky, a health law professor at Northeastern University School of Law.
It?s one thing for policymakers to agree to crack down on overprescribing doctors or misleading pharma companies, but it?s far more politically risky for them to take steps that condone illegal drug use.
?We?re not ambitious enough,? said Paul Joudrey, an assistant professor in the Yale School of Medicine who is a drug use, addiction, and HIV research scholar. ?We don?t propose changes that match the scale of the epidemic.?
Treating addiction is hard and complicated. The fundamental challenge is dealing with the things that drive people to take painkillers in the first place. People use drugs to cope with loneliness, lasting trauma and other psychological wounds. That is part of the reason why drug deaths soared during pandemic lockdowns, and why the numbers are likely to stay persistently high for years to come, Heller said.
?I started my career during the AIDS epidemic,? said Judith Feinberg, professor of behavioral medicine and psychiatry at West Virginia University. ?This is the same kind of tragedy. It?s worse really. It?s horrendous.?
Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight?s author at [email protected], or on Twitter at @RenuRayasam.
? McConnell secures GOP support for new debt strategy: Mitch McConnell believes he?s convinced a skeptical Senate Republican Conference to allow Democrats to more easily raise the debt ceiling, a critical development as the country faces a mid-December debt cliff. The Senate minority leader spent today selling his members on a convoluted strategy that would require at least 10 Republicans to approve legislation that would later allow Senate Democrats to raise the debt ceiling by a simple majority vote. After a leadership meeting and a Senate GOP lunch, McConnell said he?d done enough work to clinch the deal in a vote expected on Thursday.
? Biden warns Putin on call against Ukraine invasion: Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin today that the United States and European allies would join together to impose ?strong? economic penalties and other punitive actions on Russia should it mount an invasion of Ukraine. In a highly anticipated secure video call, Biden ?voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European Allies about Russia?s escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine and made clear that the U.S. and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation,? according to a White House readout.
? Biden bank cop nominee withdraws after pushback from moderate Dems: Biden?s choice for a key role policing the nation?s banks withdrew her nomination today after facing pushback from several moderate Democrats, a rare defeat for the president on one of his personnel choices. Saule Omarova?s nomination as comptroller of the currency also met with fierce resistance from Republicans and business groups over her advocacy for a dominant role for government in finance, views that didn?t sit well with some Democrats either.
? Judge sets July 18 for Bannon ?contempt of Congress? trial: President Donald Trump?s former adviser Steve Bannon will go to trial July 18 on criminal charges that he defied a subpoena from the House committee exploring the causes of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump?s attempt to subvert the 2020 election, a judge ordered today. Judge Carl Nichols set the mid-summer schedule after Bannon?s lawyers and Justice Department attorneys wrangled over how quickly the contempt of Congress case should move.
? Lawmakers rush to avert looming Medicare cuts: Congress reached a deal today to avert billions of dollars in impending Medicare cuts to hospitals, doctors and other providers that are set to take effect early next year. The Supporting Health Care Providers During the Covid-19 Pandemic Act, which has bipartisan support from leadership in the House and Senate, would blunt some of the cuts ? but not all. The deal comes amid the uncertainty of the Omicron variant and a fresh wave of Covid infections that has put nearly 60,000 people in hospitals.
? Suspect in Jamal Khashoggi murder arrested in Paris: French authorities have arrested one of the men suspected of involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to local media reports. Khaled Aedh Al-Otaibi, a former member of the Saudi royal guard, was taken into custody this morning at Paris? Charles de Gaulle airport, where he was traveling under his own name on the way to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Olaf Scholz (C) of the German Social Democrats, Robert Habeck (L) of the Greens Party and Christian Lindner (R) of the German Free Democrats arrive to speak to the media following the official signing of the coalition agreement between the three parties in Berlin. | Carsten Koall/Getty Images
SCHOLZ TALKS TOUGH ON RUSSIA ? Incoming German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russia today to respect the ?integrity? of Ukraine?s borders and stressed that ?a threat to Ukraine? would be ?unacceptable,? Hans von der Burchard writes.
One day ahead of his formal election as chancellor, Scholz spoke at a press conference in Berlin during which he vowed to advance Europe?s interests and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine but shied away from bluntly criticizing China.
Reacting to the Russian troop build-up at the Ukrainian border and concerns about a potentially imminent invasion, Scholz demanded that ?the integrity and invulnerability of borders? must be ensured.
?It?s very important that no one pores over history books to redraw borders,? he said, adding: ?Of course, we in Germany, just like everyone else in Europe and the United States, are very concerned about the troop movements that we are seeing on the Ukrainian border. Therefore, it must be very clear that this would be an unacceptable situation if there were a threat to Ukraine.?
One aspect of the tense situation is the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which Kyiv warns could decrease Moscow?s barriers to invasion since Russia currently relies on transiting gas through Ukraine. Pressed on the matter, Scholz said he felt bound to outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel?s commitments on the near-ready pipeline, including her insistence that Germany could sanction Russia if it uses natural gas ?as a geopolitical weapon? against Ukraine.
9:45 a.m. Thursday
The arrival time for former Sen. Bob Dole?s body to the Capitol to lie in state, according to a schedule from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks at a congressional tribute ceremony Thursday morning.
A Christmas tree stands illuminated outside number 10 Downing Street in London. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
NO. 10 FOR THE HOLIDAYS ? Boris Johnson?s staff joked about a Christmas party at Downing Street at the height of last year?s coronavirus lockdown in England, newly released video footage shows.
It comes after the U.K. prime minister?s office spent days denying claims, first reported in the Mirror, that a party was held for staff last Christmas, Esther Webber writes. The film ? published by ITV News today ? shows senior No.10 employees taking part in a December 2020 rehearsal for a press briefing.
Ed Oldfield, adviser to the prime minister, asks Johnson?s then-spokesperson Allegra Stratton: ?I?ve just seen reports on Twitter that there was a Downing Street Christmas party on Friday night. Do you recognize those reports??
In the footage, Stratton replies ?I went home,? before composing herself and telling colleagues to ?hold on? as she appears to consider what her answer should be. Oldfield then asks: ?Would the prime minister condone having a Christmas party??
Stratton laughs, looking down, before responding, ?What?s the answer?? Staff then attempt to help the PM?s then-spokesperson formulate a response. ?It wasn?t a party, it was cheese and wine,? suggests one.
The Times carried a story today saying a party in No. 10 had been organized by civil servants and included a secret Santa. Press reports suggest 30 to 40 people were in attendance, at a time when social events including parties were strictly banned under England?s coronavirus restrictions.
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A deposit box for used hypodermic needles stands in a park in the South Bronx in New York City. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images JUST SAY MAYBE ? Last week New York City became home to the first two sites in the country where drug users can take illegal drugs under the supervision of staff trained […]
The post Biden?s big decision on the opioid crisis first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:16429:"
A deposit box for used hypodermic needles stands in a park in the South Bronx in New York City. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images
JUST SAY MAYBE ? Last week New York City became home to the first two sites in the country where drug users can take illegal drugs under the supervision of staff trained to reverse overdoses. Rhode Island plans to open a similar site next year, under a two-year pilot program. And about a dozen localities are considering the controversial idea, which advocates say can lower overdose deaths but which critics say promotes illegal drug use.
The Trump administration vocally opposed such supervised injections, saying they violated the ?crack house statute? ? legislation that Joe Biden crafted as a senator in the 1980s. So far, the Biden administration has remained silent on whether it would allow the sites to operate.
But in the coming weeks, a lingering Trump administration case against a proposed Philadelphia injection site called Safehouse could force the Biden administration to decide whether it is willing to quietly condone the practice. The Department of Justice is supposed to file a brief stating its position in the case by Jan. 5 ? the department refused to comment to Nightly on its plans. If the Biden administration drops its opposition to Safehouse in court, that would pave the way for more such sites to open up around the country.
Supervised injection sites are just the newest example of how the ongoing overdose death crisis is fraying the bipartisan resolve that developed during the first wave of opioid deaths in the 1990s and 2000s. The sites are also testing the Biden administration?s willingness to dismantle ?war on drugs? policies that often interfere with localities? efforts to lower deaths from drug overdoses.
The opioid crisis is worse than it has ever been, but as it has moved from a prescription drug crisis to a street drug one, it?s become far more complicated ? and controversial ? to solve.
When the opioid overdose crisis was rooted in the realm of prescription drugs there was an easy, agreed-upon villain. Federal and state officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, wanted to crack down on the doctors and pharmacies running pill mills and to file lawsuits against pharma companies for flooding towns with addictive painkillers. The nation directed its ire ? and investigative, award-winning stories, books and documentaries ? at the Sackler family.
Now, the problem has migrated from brand-name pain pills like Oxycontin to illicit street drugs like heroin and, now, mostly fentanyl. Opioid prescriptions plummeted 44.4 percent between 2011 and 2020, yet overdose deaths soared as people suffering from addiction migrated to deadlier alternative highs. Overdose deaths topped 100,000 between April 2020 and April 2021 ? the highest level ever recorded. Deaths are surging among Black and Indigenous populations, in big cities across the country.
Policies designed to stop the pharmaceutical drug crisis could now be backfiring, driving people to street drugs, addiction experts say. That approach of limiting access to powerful painkillers has also made medications used to treat opioid addiction, like methadone and buprenorphine, which are forms of opioids themselves, harder to get.
Patients have gotten arrested for buprenorphine that has prescribed for them, said Daliah Heller, director of drug use initiatives at Vital Strategies. Meanwhile fentanyl is cheap, powerful and ubiquitous, making it a more attractive alternative to someone in withdrawal.
The supervised injection sites in New York and Rhode Island fall into a broad category of policy called harm reduction, which adopts the guiding philosophy of just keeping drug users alive so that they have a chance to seek addiction treatment before they die. Addiction experts say these sorts of policies ? like supplying fresh needles for heroin addicts and strips that help users determine whether their narcotics are laced with fentanyl ? are the country?s best shot of reducing deaths from overdoses. The bulk of the evidence is on their side, they say.
?It works and it improves outcomes,? Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told Nightly about harm reduction broadly. Volkow was optimistic about safe injection sites but said they still needed to be studied.
Even so, backlash to such policies is mounting. The Safehouse site in South Philadelphia is facing opposition in the neighborhood where it was planning to locate.
The Biden administration is trying to tread cautiously, though it is the first administration to embrace harm reduction. Biden?s drug czar, Rahul Gupta, has been criticized for his role in shutting down the state?s largest syringe services program when he ran West Virginia?s health department. These are programs that often get their start underground, operating in legal gray areas first, making them politically problematic, said Leo Beletsky, a health law professor at Northeastern University School of Law.
It?s one thing for policymakers to agree to crack down on overprescribing doctors or misleading pharma companies, but it?s far more politically risky for them to take steps that condone illegal drug use.
?We?re not ambitious enough,? said Paul Joudrey, an assistant professor in the Yale School of Medicine who is a drug use, addiction, and HIV research scholar. ?We don?t propose changes that match the scale of the epidemic.?
Treating addiction is hard and complicated. The fundamental challenge is dealing with the things that drive people to take painkillers in the first place. People use drugs to cope with loneliness, lasting trauma and other psychological wounds. That is part of the reason why drug deaths soared during pandemic lockdowns, and why the numbers are likely to stay persistently high for years to come, Heller said.
?I started my career during the AIDS epidemic,? said Judith Feinberg, professor of behavioral medicine and psychiatry at West Virginia University. ?This is the same kind of tragedy. It?s worse really. It?s horrendous.?
Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight?s author at [email protected], or on Twitter at @RenuRayasam.
? McConnell secures GOP support for new debt strategy: Mitch McConnell believes he?s convinced a skeptical Senate Republican Conference to allow Democrats to more easily raise the debt ceiling, a critical development as the country faces a mid-December debt cliff. The Senate minority leader spent today selling his members on a convoluted strategy that would require at least 10 Republicans to approve legislation that would later allow Senate Democrats to raise the debt ceiling by a simple majority vote. After a leadership meeting and a Senate GOP lunch, McConnell said he?d done enough work to clinch the deal in a vote expected on Thursday.
? Biden warns Putin on call against Ukraine invasion: Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin today that the United States and European allies would join together to impose ?strong? economic penalties and other punitive actions on Russia should it mount an invasion of Ukraine. In a highly anticipated secure video call, Biden ?voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European Allies about Russia?s escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine and made clear that the U.S. and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation,? according to a White House readout.
? Biden bank cop nominee withdraws after pushback from moderate Dems: Biden?s choice for a key role policing the nation?s banks withdrew her nomination today after facing pushback from several moderate Democrats, a rare defeat for the president on one of his personnel choices. Saule Omarova?s nomination as comptroller of the currency also met with fierce resistance from Republicans and business groups over her advocacy for a dominant role for government in finance, views that didn?t sit well with some Democrats either.
? Judge sets July 18 for Bannon ?contempt of Congress? trial: President Donald Trump?s former adviser Steve Bannon will go to trial July 18 on criminal charges that he defied a subpoena from the House committee exploring the causes of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump?s attempt to subvert the 2020 election, a judge ordered today. Judge Carl Nichols set the mid-summer schedule after Bannon?s lawyers and Justice Department attorneys wrangled over how quickly the contempt of Congress case should move.
? Lawmakers rush to avert looming Medicare cuts: Congress reached a deal today to avert billions of dollars in impending Medicare cuts to hospitals, doctors and other providers that are set to take effect early next year. The Supporting Health Care Providers During the Covid-19 Pandemic Act, which has bipartisan support from leadership in the House and Senate, would blunt some of the cuts ? but not all. The deal comes amid the uncertainty of the Omicron variant and a fresh wave of Covid infections that has put nearly 60,000 people in hospitals.
? Suspect in Jamal Khashoggi murder arrested in Paris: French authorities have arrested one of the men suspected of involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to local media reports. Khaled Aedh Al-Otaibi, a former member of the Saudi royal guard, was taken into custody this morning at Paris? Charles de Gaulle airport, where he was traveling under his own name on the way to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Olaf Scholz (C) of the German Social Democrats, Robert Habeck (L) of the Greens Party and Christian Lindner (R) of the German Free Democrats arrive to speak to the media following the official signing of the coalition agreement between the three parties in Berlin. | Carsten Koall/Getty Images
SCHOLZ TALKS TOUGH ON RUSSIA ? Incoming German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russia today to respect the ?integrity? of Ukraine?s borders and stressed that ?a threat to Ukraine? would be ?unacceptable,? Hans von der Burchard writes.
One day ahead of his formal election as chancellor, Scholz spoke at a press conference in Berlin during which he vowed to advance Europe?s interests and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine but shied away from bluntly criticizing China.
Reacting to the Russian troop build-up at the Ukrainian border and concerns about a potentially imminent invasion, Scholz demanded that ?the integrity and invulnerability of borders? must be ensured.
?It?s very important that no one pores over history books to redraw borders,? he said, adding: ?Of course, we in Germany, just like everyone else in Europe and the United States, are very concerned about the troop movements that we are seeing on the Ukrainian border. Therefore, it must be very clear that this would be an unacceptable situation if there were a threat to Ukraine.?
One aspect of the tense situation is the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which Kyiv warns could decrease Moscow?s barriers to invasion since Russia currently relies on transiting gas through Ukraine. Pressed on the matter, Scholz said he felt bound to outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel?s commitments on the near-ready pipeline, including her insistence that Germany could sanction Russia if it uses natural gas ?as a geopolitical weapon? against Ukraine.
9:45 a.m. Thursday
The arrival time for former Sen. Bob Dole?s body to the Capitol to lie in state, according to a schedule from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks at a congressional tribute ceremony Thursday morning.
A Christmas tree stands illuminated outside number 10 Downing Street in London. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
NO. 10 FOR THE HOLIDAYS ? Boris Johnson?s staff joked about a Christmas party at Downing Street at the height of last year?s coronavirus lockdown in England, newly released video footage shows.
It comes after the U.K. prime minister?s office spent days denying claims, first reported in the Mirror, that a party was held for staff last Christmas, Esther Webber writes. The film ? published by ITV News today ? shows senior No.10 employees taking part in a December 2020 rehearsal for a press briefing.
Ed Oldfield, adviser to the prime minister, asks Johnson?s then-spokesperson Allegra Stratton: ?I?ve just seen reports on Twitter that there was a Downing Street Christmas party on Friday night. Do you recognize those reports??
In the footage, Stratton replies ?I went home,? before composing herself and telling colleagues to ?hold on? as she appears to consider what her answer should be. Oldfield then asks: ?Would the prime minister condone having a Christmas party??
Stratton laughs, looking down, before responding, ?What?s the answer?? Staff then attempt to help the PM?s then-spokesperson formulate a response. ?It wasn?t a party, it was cheese and wine,? suggests one.
The Times carried a story today saying a party in No. 10 had been organized by civil servants and included a secret Santa. Press reports suggest 30 to 40 people were in attendance, at a time when social events including parties were strictly banned under England?s coronavirus restrictions.
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The human cost of the opioid epidemic is now a well-known disaster, but in 2021 it was more visible on TV than ever. The proliferation of the prescription OxyContin was the focus of Hulu’s limited series Dopesick, and opioid addiction played a prominent role on a variety of other shows, including HBO’s Mare of Easttown, […]
The post From Dopesick to Mare of Easttown, the Opioid Crisis Was Everywhere on TV in 2021 first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:8380:"The human cost of the opioid epidemic is now a well-known disaster, but in 2021 it was more visible on TV than ever. The proliferation of the prescription OxyContin was the focus of Hulu’s limited series Dopesick, and opioid addiction played a prominent role on a variety of other shows, including HBO’s Mare of Easttown, AMC’s Kevin Can F ** k Himself, and Showtimes Dexter: New Blood and American Rust. The drug, which infiltrated almost every aspect of American society, played a role in everything from a crime thriller to a somber comedy from classic sitcoms.
“I was aware [the crisis] but didn’t know much about the details ” Kaitlyn Dever, who plays Betsy Mallum from Dopesick says by email. Your character, a miner, becomes addicted to OxyContin after an accident at work. “I knew some people who lost loved ones to OxyContin, but I didn’t know the injustice behind it or how many lives it affected.” [or] therefore lost. “
The miniseries, created by Danny Stark, tells its story across multiple timelines and characters, meaning Betsy is portrayed at various stages of her addiction. Combined with hectic shooting schedules, Dever says that she “ended up making a table for me so I could keep track of where she was in the retreat process from scene to scene.”
“I really wanted to be specific and make sure I lived up to the character,” says the actress, adding that she also relied heavily on journalists Beth Macy‘s book Dopesick, which served as the starting material for the project, and that she ?ended up meeting someone who had a similar experience with Betsy and was super nice to share and support throughout the shoot. This person has played a large part in my research and development. “
Betsy becomes addicted after receiving a prescription from her well-meaning community doctor. Michael Keatonis Samuel Finnix. Similar, Mary Hollis InbodenBoston hairstylist Patty O’Connor in AMC’s gritty comedy Kevin Can F ** k Himself thought she was going to help when she first gave away her boring brother Neil (Alex Bonifer) Painkillers after his recent joke hurt him.
“Before she started drug trafficking, she’s just a bored woman who finds herself in a position where she had to keep her brother alive because of his hijinks and the latest buffoons,” says Inboden. “She’s beginning to realize that one way out of her boredom and the mundaneness of her life is to listen to the women in her community who come through her salon.”
Patty finds meaning in her life through drug trafficking, much like Walter White of Breaking Bad – and like White, she doesn’t necessarily think about the people she’s selling to. “Patty tried to help at the beginning,” says Inboden. “It’s so tragic because I have the feeling as a society that we judge a decent person by the fact that he recognizes someone else’s pain and tries to help.”
Inboden speaks about the “breadth” of the opioid crisis that has devastated populations across the country but is best known for its impact on the working class and small towns. In the Mare of Easttown, Kate Winslet plays a Pennsylvania detective who is used to seeing people she knows and loves – like a friend’s brother or her grandson’s mother – struggling with addiction. In the miniseries, some victims were easier to kidnap because of their addiction issues. In the American rust Jeff Daniels plays another Pennsylvania cop investigating a murder. He also has his own opioid addiction.
But how accurate are the representations in these shows? And does the fact that so many of these programs are arriving now indicate a failure Hollywood has in not acting sooner?
Popular TV characters like Hugh Laurie‘s misanthropic and narcissistic doctor Gregory House on Fox’s House and Rami MalekUSA Network’s Mr. Robot’s hacker Elliot Alderson were both known to use opioids and have been seen going through withdrawal. Like many people, both started taking the medication because of a legitimate medical need (House MD is taking Vicodin to treat pain from a leg injury; Elliot most likely has dissociative disorder and is starting to take the medication to wean himself off when sniffing morphine). Roseanne BarrThe character’s character was written off from the show that was to become ABC’s The Conners through an opioid overdose death – a move that both quickly tackled a scandal surrounding the star’s troubled tweets and was relevant to a story about a working class family, who tried to keep them all together.
but Jeremiah Gardner, the director of communications and public affairs of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, e-mailed that the surge in televised displays of this addiction in recent years is likely “fueled by the tragedy of our overdose epidemic, the gross negligence of the pharmaceutical industry, and” the fraying of it America?s social fabric and our collective well-being. “
This is of course the task of the medium. Trending pieces have shown how television has portrayed our culture’s growing knowledge of topics such as male approval and female anger. So it makes sense that television would want to cover a headline-grabbing story like opioid addiction as well.
“Art is a reflection of society, and I think what we’re seeing in the growing number of depictions is that addiction is an essential thread in the history of our time,” adds Gardner.
This content can also be viewed on the website from which it originated.
More great stories from Vanity fair
– How Lin-Manuel Miranda Tick, Tick … Boom! ‘S exciting cameo pulled through
– Nine Oscar front runners to see right now
– Bruised: How Halle Berry Channeled Her Career Fight
– Nightmare Alley is another strong Oscar contender for Guillermo del Toro
– Is West Side Story the best-picture front runner?
– Sign up for the Awards Insider newsletter to read key industry and award reports.
The human cost of the opioid epidemic is now a well-known disaster, but in 2021 it was more visible on TV than ever. The proliferation of the prescription OxyContin was the focus of Hulu’s limited series Dopesick, and opioid addiction played a prominent role on a variety of other shows, including HBO’s Mare of Easttown, […]
The post From Dopesick to Mare of Easttown, the Opioid Crisis Was Everywhere on TV in 2021 first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:8380:"The human cost of the opioid epidemic is now a well-known disaster, but in 2021 it was more visible on TV than ever. The proliferation of the prescription OxyContin was the focus of Hulu’s limited series Dopesick, and opioid addiction played a prominent role on a variety of other shows, including HBO’s Mare of Easttown, AMC’s Kevin Can F ** k Himself, and Showtimes Dexter: New Blood and American Rust. The drug, which infiltrated almost every aspect of American society, played a role in everything from a crime thriller to a somber comedy from classic sitcoms.
“I was aware [the crisis] but didn’t know much about the details ” Kaitlyn Dever, who plays Betsy Mallum from Dopesick says by email. Your character, a miner, becomes addicted to OxyContin after an accident at work. “I knew some people who lost loved ones to OxyContin, but I didn’t know the injustice behind it or how many lives it affected.” [or] therefore lost. “
The miniseries, created by Danny Stark, tells its story across multiple timelines and characters, meaning Betsy is portrayed at various stages of her addiction. Combined with hectic shooting schedules, Dever says that she “ended up making a table for me so I could keep track of where she was in the retreat process from scene to scene.”
“I really wanted to be specific and make sure I lived up to the character,” says the actress, adding that she also relied heavily on journalists Beth Macy‘s book Dopesick, which served as the starting material for the project, and that she ?ended up meeting someone who had a similar experience with Betsy and was super nice to share and support throughout the shoot. This person has played a large part in my research and development. “
Betsy becomes addicted after receiving a prescription from her well-meaning community doctor. Michael Keatonis Samuel Finnix. Similar, Mary Hollis InbodenBoston hairstylist Patty O’Connor in AMC’s gritty comedy Kevin Can F ** k Himself thought she was going to help when she first gave away her boring brother Neil (Alex Bonifer) Painkillers after his recent joke hurt him.
“Before she started drug trafficking, she’s just a bored woman who finds herself in a position where she had to keep her brother alive because of his hijinks and the latest buffoons,” says Inboden. “She’s beginning to realize that one way out of her boredom and the mundaneness of her life is to listen to the women in her community who come through her salon.”
Patty finds meaning in her life through drug trafficking, much like Walter White of Breaking Bad – and like White, she doesn’t necessarily think about the people she’s selling to. “Patty tried to help at the beginning,” says Inboden. “It’s so tragic because I have the feeling as a society that we judge a decent person by the fact that he recognizes someone else’s pain and tries to help.”
Inboden speaks about the “breadth” of the opioid crisis that has devastated populations across the country but is best known for its impact on the working class and small towns. In the Mare of Easttown, Kate Winslet plays a Pennsylvania detective who is used to seeing people she knows and loves – like a friend’s brother or her grandson’s mother – struggling with addiction. In the miniseries, some victims were easier to kidnap because of their addiction issues. In the American rust Jeff Daniels plays another Pennsylvania cop investigating a murder. He also has his own opioid addiction.
But how accurate are the representations in these shows? And does the fact that so many of these programs are arriving now indicate a failure Hollywood has in not acting sooner?
Popular TV characters like Hugh Laurie‘s misanthropic and narcissistic doctor Gregory House on Fox’s House and Rami MalekUSA Network’s Mr. Robot’s hacker Elliot Alderson were both known to use opioids and have been seen going through withdrawal. Like many people, both started taking the medication because of a legitimate medical need (House MD is taking Vicodin to treat pain from a leg injury; Elliot most likely has dissociative disorder and is starting to take the medication to wean himself off when sniffing morphine). Roseanne BarrThe character’s character was written off from the show that was to become ABC’s The Conners through an opioid overdose death – a move that both quickly tackled a scandal surrounding the star’s troubled tweets and was relevant to a story about a working class family, who tried to keep them all together.
but Jeremiah Gardner, the director of communications and public affairs of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, e-mailed that the surge in televised displays of this addiction in recent years is likely “fueled by the tragedy of our overdose epidemic, the gross negligence of the pharmaceutical industry, and” the fraying of it America?s social fabric and our collective well-being. “
This is of course the task of the medium. Trending pieces have shown how television has portrayed our culture’s growing knowledge of topics such as male approval and female anger. So it makes sense that television would want to cover a headline-grabbing story like opioid addiction as well.
“Art is a reflection of society, and I think what we’re seeing in the growing number of depictions is that addiction is an essential thread in the history of our time,” adds Gardner.
This content can also be viewed on the website from which it originated.
More great stories from Vanity fair
– How Lin-Manuel Miranda Tick, Tick … Boom! ‘S exciting cameo pulled through
– Nine Oscar front runners to see right now
– Bruised: How Halle Berry Channeled Her Career Fight
– Nightmare Alley is another strong Oscar contender for Guillermo del Toro
– Is West Side Story the best-picture front runner?
– Sign up for the Awards Insider newsletter to read key industry and award reports.
The other day in Mexico I met an elderly man from Virginia who had recently lost a brother to cancer. He gulped as he remembered his brother approaching parents on the street as a child to compliment them on the beauty of their offspring, adding that cancer wasn’t his brother’s only ailment. He was also […]
The post The US opioid epidemic, edition 2021 | Opinions first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:7023:"The other day in Mexico I met an elderly man from Virginia who had recently lost a brother to cancer. He gulped as he remembered his brother approaching parents on the street as a child to compliment them on the beauty of their offspring, adding that cancer wasn’t his brother’s only ailment. He was also a victim of the “other epidemic” – that is, the opioid crisis that caused around 500,000 overdose deaths in the United States between 1999 and 2019, while destroying countless other lives through addiction.
The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the overdose phenomenon, with the number of deaths in the US now exceeding 100,000. About 75 percent of these are attributed to opioids – a class of drugs that includes heroin, synthetic fentanyl, and prescription pain relievers like oxycodone.
A December article in the New York Times titled ?Opioids Feel Like Love. That is why they are deadly in difficult times, ?explains that such drugs? mimic the neurotransmitters responsible for calming social connections – parenting to children, lover to lover ?.
The article points out that isolation and loneliness often fuel addiction, and that in the United States, overdose death rates have increased fourfold over the past few decades and social isolation has increased. For example, a 2018 survey found that “only about half of respondents felt they had someone to turn to all or most of the time”.
It is hardly surprising, then, that coronavirus home-stay protocols and social distancing measures would lead many Americans to seek substitutes for human contact and affection – not that U.S. society has ever been very, um, loving.
Of course, life can get pretty lonely in a country that prefers to spend trillions on wars rather than ensuring its citizens have adequate access to basic rights like health care – and where a depraved capitalist system is actively thwarting for the sake of human solidarity Maintaining a tyranny of the elite.
Speaking of war, the half a million figure – the number of Americans killed by opioid overdoses in two decades – happens to be the number of Iraqi children reportedly killed by U.S. sanctions in 1996 alone. Given these statistics at the time, then-US Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, reiterated that “we think the price is worth it,” which embodies the deadly logic of capitalism pretty well.
This also applies to Purdue Pharma – maker of the massively addictive prescription pain reliever, OxyContin – owned by the billionaire Sackler family. As noted in a December 2020 US Congress hearing on the role of Purdue and the Sacklers in the opioid epidemic, ?Purdue targeted high volume prescribers to boost sales of OxyContin, ignoring and working on safeguards to stop the abuse should reduce prescription opioids and promoted “false narratives about their products to discourage patients from safer alternatives and to divert blame onto people struggling with addiction”.
In fact, former Purdue manager Richard Sackler once stated in an email that “abusers” of OxyContin (a brand of oxycodone) were “the culprits and the problem.” They are ruthless criminals ?- undoubtedly a charming assessment of the person overseeing the ruthless flooding of US communities with dangerous addictive substances.
Purdue Pharma was resolved in 2021 in a settlement that will turn the Sacklers into slightly smaller billionaires, a predictable form of “justice” in a country where poor black people are regularly sentenced to life imprisonment or forced to endure other equally life-destroying things Penalties for minor drug offenses. The scene becomes all the more disgusting when you consider that OxyContin addicts often resort to heavily criminalized drugs such as heroin when the so-called “legal” ones are not available.
During the above-mentioned hearing before the US Congress, a representative from the state of David Sackler, a former board member of Purdue Pharma, gave his clear opinion: “I am not sure if I know of any family in America who are worse than yours “.
But while the Sacklers were selected for supposedly uniquely nefarious machinations, Purdue Pharma was just part and parcel of the American journey: turning killing into murder. Just ask the defense industry.
The company’s blame on the victims of its predatory business model is also symptomatic of a domestic neoliberal landscape where poor people are blamed for failing in the society that is effectively killing them – and they get the bill for the honors .
Other US corporate actors have also been tried for their contribution to the opioid epidemic. In November, a federal jury in Ohio found that CVS, Walgreens and Walmart – three of the most famous pharmacy chains in the country – were involved in creating a “public nuisance.” Yet this is still a fairly mundane indictment in a criminally incarcerated nation where government-corporate collusion in a profitable and deadly dependence on capitalism has spawned a thoroughly sick system.
And as long as opioids ?feel like love? in an otherwise loveless panorama, there is no end to the crisis in sight.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own views and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
The post The US opioid epidemic, edition 2021 | Opinions first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";}s:7:"summary";s:1300:"The other day in Mexico I met an elderly man from Virginia who had recently lost a brother to cancer. He gulped as he remembered his brother approaching parents on the street as a child to compliment them on the beauty of their offspring, adding that cancer wasn’t his brother’s only ailment. He was also […]
The post The US opioid epidemic, edition 2021 | Opinions first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:7023:"The other day in Mexico I met an elderly man from Virginia who had recently lost a brother to cancer. He gulped as he remembered his brother approaching parents on the street as a child to compliment them on the beauty of their offspring, adding that cancer wasn’t his brother’s only ailment. He was also a victim of the “other epidemic” – that is, the opioid crisis that caused around 500,000 overdose deaths in the United States between 1999 and 2019, while destroying countless other lives through addiction.
The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the overdose phenomenon, with the number of deaths in the US now exceeding 100,000. About 75 percent of these are attributed to opioids – a class of drugs that includes heroin, synthetic fentanyl, and prescription pain relievers like oxycodone.
A December article in the New York Times titled ?Opioids Feel Like Love. That is why they are deadly in difficult times, ?explains that such drugs? mimic the neurotransmitters responsible for calming social connections – parenting to children, lover to lover ?.
The article points out that isolation and loneliness often fuel addiction, and that in the United States, overdose death rates have increased fourfold over the past few decades and social isolation has increased. For example, a 2018 survey found that “only about half of respondents felt they had someone to turn to all or most of the time”.
It is hardly surprising, then, that coronavirus home-stay protocols and social distancing measures would lead many Americans to seek substitutes for human contact and affection – not that U.S. society has ever been very, um, loving.
Of course, life can get pretty lonely in a country that prefers to spend trillions on wars rather than ensuring its citizens have adequate access to basic rights like health care – and where a depraved capitalist system is actively thwarting for the sake of human solidarity Maintaining a tyranny of the elite.
Speaking of war, the half a million figure – the number of Americans killed by opioid overdoses in two decades – happens to be the number of Iraqi children reportedly killed by U.S. sanctions in 1996 alone. Given these statistics at the time, then-US Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, reiterated that “we think the price is worth it,” which embodies the deadly logic of capitalism pretty well.
This also applies to Purdue Pharma – maker of the massively addictive prescription pain reliever, OxyContin – owned by the billionaire Sackler family. As noted in a December 2020 US Congress hearing on the role of Purdue and the Sacklers in the opioid epidemic, ?Purdue targeted high volume prescribers to boost sales of OxyContin, ignoring and working on safeguards to stop the abuse should reduce prescription opioids and promoted “false narratives about their products to discourage patients from safer alternatives and to divert blame onto people struggling with addiction”.
In fact, former Purdue manager Richard Sackler once stated in an email that “abusers” of OxyContin (a brand of oxycodone) were “the culprits and the problem.” They are ruthless criminals ?- undoubtedly a charming assessment of the person overseeing the ruthless flooding of US communities with dangerous addictive substances.
Purdue Pharma was resolved in 2021 in a settlement that will turn the Sacklers into slightly smaller billionaires, a predictable form of “justice” in a country where poor black people are regularly sentenced to life imprisonment or forced to endure other equally life-destroying things Penalties for minor drug offenses. The scene becomes all the more disgusting when you consider that OxyContin addicts often resort to heavily criminalized drugs such as heroin when the so-called “legal” ones are not available.
During the above-mentioned hearing before the US Congress, a representative from the state of David Sackler, a former board member of Purdue Pharma, gave his clear opinion: “I am not sure if I know of any family in America who are worse than yours “.
But while the Sacklers were selected for supposedly uniquely nefarious machinations, Purdue Pharma was just part and parcel of the American journey: turning killing into murder. Just ask the defense industry.
The company’s blame on the victims of its predatory business model is also symptomatic of a domestic neoliberal landscape where poor people are blamed for failing in the society that is effectively killing them – and they get the bill for the honors .
Other US corporate actors have also been tried for their contribution to the opioid epidemic. In November, a federal jury in Ohio found that CVS, Walgreens and Walmart – three of the most famous pharmacy chains in the country – were involved in creating a “public nuisance.” Yet this is still a fairly mundane indictment in a criminally incarcerated nation where government-corporate collusion in a profitable and deadly dependence on capitalism has spawned a thoroughly sick system.
And as long as opioids ?feel like love? in an otherwise loveless panorama, there is no end to the crisis in sight.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own views and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
The post The US opioid epidemic, edition 2021 | Opinions first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1641104009;}i:8;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:63:"Teva Pharmaceuticals is found liable in the opioid crisis : NPR";s:4:"link";s:92:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/teva-pharmaceuticals-is-found-liable-in-the-opioid-crisis-npr/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:20:"Opioid News and Talk";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sat, 01 Jan 2022 17:27:18 +0000";s:8:"category";s:53:"Opioid CrisiscrisisLiableNPRopioidPharmaceuticalsTeva";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/?p=3395";s:11:"description";s:1630:"
On October 16, 2013, trucks drive in front of Teva’s pharmaceutical logistics center in Shoam city, Israel. On Thursday, a jury held Teva responsible for contributing to the opioid crisis. Dan Balilty / AP Hide caption Toggle caption Dan Balilty / AP On October 16, 2013, trucks drive in front of Teva’s pharmaceutical logistics center […]
The post Teva Pharmaceuticals is found liable in the opioid crisis : NPR first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:10606:"On October 16, 2013, trucks drive in front of Teva’s pharmaceutical logistics center in Shoam city, Israel. On Thursday, a jury held Teva responsible for contributing to the opioid crisis. Dan Balilty / AP Hide caption
Toggle caption
Dan Balilty / AP
On October 16, 2013, trucks drive in front of Teva’s pharmaceutical logistics center in Shoam city, Israel. On Thursday, a jury held Teva responsible for contributing to the opioid crisis.
Dan Balilty / AP
NEW YORK – Drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals contributed to the opioid crisis, a suburban New York jury ruled Thursday in one of the few verdicts among thousands of nationwide complaints about the pain medication.
A separate process will follow to determine what Teva would pay in the event that New York state and two counties of Long Island acquired a number of pharmaceutical companies.
In Thursday’s ruling, a Suffolk County jury found the drug company had a role in what is legally termed public harassment, but it resulted in deadly consequences – an opioid use epidemic that has been more than 500,000 deaths in the US has been linked.
“Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and others have misled the American people about the real dangers of opioids,” said James, a Democrat, in a press release. “Today we have taken an important step to redress the injustices this country has suffered collectively over the past two decades.”
Israel-based Teva, which makes drugs containing the strong opioid fentanyl, said it contradicts the judgment “strongly” and plans to appeal.
Plaintiffs presented no evidence of medically unnecessary prescriptions, suspicious or diverted orders, or evidence of oversupply, “and did not show that Teva’s marketing was harming New Yorkers, the company said in a statement. She also advocates wrongdoing based on various issues.
The US-listed Teva share fell after the verdict was announced, ending 6.3% to $ 7.90.
Across the country, state and local governments, Indian tribes, labor unions, school districts and others have sued the pharmaceutical industry over pain medication.
The 2019 New York lawsuit was directed against several opioid manufacturers and retailers, companies that buy drugs in bulk and sell them to pharmacies.
The lawsuit accused the pharmaceutical companies of violating their legal obligations to “benefit from the plague that they knew would be unleashed”. The state and counties said drug manufacturers worked together to mislead people and downplay the serious risks of opioid addiction, and that drug dealers bypassed systems designed to restrict pain reliever ordering.
Teva is known for making generics, but the lawsuit focused on Actiq and Fentora, two branded fentanyl drugs approved for some cancer patients. Teva repeatedly advertised them for other types of pain in a “deceptive and dangerous marketing strategy,” the lawsuit states.
“They are trying to say that they are selling legal products. The only problem is, they are selling them illegally,” said attorney Hunter Shkolnik, who represented Nassau County, at a virtual press conference on Thursday. “The jury saw that what they are doing is wrong.”
Teva said Thursday it continues to focus on improving access to essential medicines for patients and believes national regulation of opioid problems is in the best interests of patients.
New York said the behavior of the various opioid companies named in the lawsuit cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in bills for addiction treatment and other expenses. District lawyers suggested that Teva could be held liable for tens of billions of dollars or more in damages.
“The numbers are staggering of what it has cost our communities and what it will continue to cost our communities” in emergency services for overdose victims, drug rehabilitation programs and more, Suffolk County attorney Jayne Conroy said at the virtual press conference.
Teva was the only manufacturing defendant to remain in the lawsuit after others settled, most recently Allergan Finance LLC in December. The various settlements have grossed up to $ 1.5 billion in New York.
The process started months ago. The jury began deliberating on December 14th and took a few days off at Christmas.
Elsewhere, only a few opioid cases have been decided without a clear consensus on the results.
An Oklahoma judge ruled against drug maker Johnson & Johnson in 2019, but the state’s Supreme Court overturned that decision in November. A week earlier, a California judge had ruled in favor of drug manufacturers – including Teva.
Then, late last month, a Cleveland federal jury sided with two Ohio county governments that had filed claims against pharmacy chains.
Some observers thought the California and Oklahoma rulings would ruin the idea of ??using state public harassment laws to prosecute opioid lawsuits, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who is prosecuting the litigation nationwide.
“But now we really see that that’s not true,” said Tobias at least in some places. He suggested that Thursday’s ruling could reinvigorate such lawsuits.
A case has been completed, but a judge has pending judgment on a case in West Virginia and a case is pending in Washington state. Thousands of other cases are on trial.
There have also been settlements. Some of the biggest names in the industry – such as distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson, and drug makers Johnson & Johnson, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals – have made nationwide comparisons with a cumulative value of potentially well over $ 30 billion. Most of the money goes to fighting the epidemic.
But most of these deals have not yet been closed and there has been a very major turnaround. In mid-December, a federal judge rejected OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s comprehensive deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids.
The post Teva Pharmaceuticals is found liable in the opioid crisis : NPR first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";}s:7:"summary";s:1630:"On October 16, 2013, trucks drive in front of Teva’s pharmaceutical logistics center in Shoam city, Israel. On Thursday, a jury held Teva responsible for contributing to the opioid crisis. Dan Balilty / AP Hide caption Toggle caption Dan Balilty / AP On October 16, 2013, trucks drive in front of Teva’s pharmaceutical logistics center […]
The post Teva Pharmaceuticals is found liable in the opioid crisis : NPR first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:10606:"On October 16, 2013, trucks drive in front of Teva’s pharmaceutical logistics center in Shoam city, Israel. On Thursday, a jury held Teva responsible for contributing to the opioid crisis. Dan Balilty / AP Hide caption
Toggle caption
Dan Balilty / AP
On October 16, 2013, trucks drive in front of Teva’s pharmaceutical logistics center in Shoam city, Israel. On Thursday, a jury held Teva responsible for contributing to the opioid crisis.
Dan Balilty / AP
NEW YORK – Drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals contributed to the opioid crisis, a suburban New York jury ruled Thursday in one of the few verdicts among thousands of nationwide complaints about the pain medication.
A separate process will follow to determine what Teva would pay in the event that New York state and two counties of Long Island acquired a number of pharmaceutical companies.
In Thursday’s ruling, a Suffolk County jury found the drug company had a role in what is legally termed public harassment, but it resulted in deadly consequences – an opioid use epidemic that has been more than 500,000 deaths in the US has been linked.
“Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and others have misled the American people about the real dangers of opioids,” said James, a Democrat, in a press release. “Today we have taken an important step to redress the injustices this country has suffered collectively over the past two decades.”
Israel-based Teva, which makes drugs containing the strong opioid fentanyl, said it contradicts the judgment “strongly” and plans to appeal.
Plaintiffs presented no evidence of medically unnecessary prescriptions, suspicious or diverted orders, or evidence of oversupply, “and did not show that Teva’s marketing was harming New Yorkers, the company said in a statement. She also advocates wrongdoing based on various issues.
The US-listed Teva share fell after the verdict was announced, ending 6.3% to $ 7.90.
Across the country, state and local governments, Indian tribes, labor unions, school districts and others have sued the pharmaceutical industry over pain medication.
The 2019 New York lawsuit was directed against several opioid manufacturers and retailers, companies that buy drugs in bulk and sell them to pharmacies.
The lawsuit accused the pharmaceutical companies of violating their legal obligations to “benefit from the plague that they knew would be unleashed”. The state and counties said drug manufacturers worked together to mislead people and downplay the serious risks of opioid addiction, and that drug dealers bypassed systems designed to restrict pain reliever ordering.
Teva is known for making generics, but the lawsuit focused on Actiq and Fentora, two branded fentanyl drugs approved for some cancer patients. Teva repeatedly advertised them for other types of pain in a “deceptive and dangerous marketing strategy,” the lawsuit states.
“They are trying to say that they are selling legal products. The only problem is, they are selling them illegally,” said attorney Hunter Shkolnik, who represented Nassau County, at a virtual press conference on Thursday. “The jury saw that what they are doing is wrong.”
Teva said Thursday it continues to focus on improving access to essential medicines for patients and believes national regulation of opioid problems is in the best interests of patients.
New York said the behavior of the various opioid companies named in the lawsuit cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in bills for addiction treatment and other expenses. District lawyers suggested that Teva could be held liable for tens of billions of dollars or more in damages.
“The numbers are staggering of what it has cost our communities and what it will continue to cost our communities” in emergency services for overdose victims, drug rehabilitation programs and more, Suffolk County attorney Jayne Conroy said at the virtual press conference.
Teva was the only manufacturing defendant to remain in the lawsuit after others settled, most recently Allergan Finance LLC in December. The various settlements have grossed up to $ 1.5 billion in New York.
The process started months ago. The jury began deliberating on December 14th and took a few days off at Christmas.
Elsewhere, only a few opioid cases have been decided without a clear consensus on the results.
An Oklahoma judge ruled against drug maker Johnson & Johnson in 2019, but the state’s Supreme Court overturned that decision in November. A week earlier, a California judge had ruled in favor of drug manufacturers – including Teva.
Then, late last month, a Cleveland federal jury sided with two Ohio county governments that had filed claims against pharmacy chains.
Some observers thought the California and Oklahoma rulings would ruin the idea of ??using state public harassment laws to prosecute opioid lawsuits, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who is prosecuting the litigation nationwide.
“But now we really see that that’s not true,” said Tobias at least in some places. He suggested that Thursday’s ruling could reinvigorate such lawsuits.
A case has been completed, but a judge has pending judgment on a case in West Virginia and a case is pending in Washington state. Thousands of other cases are on trial.
There have also been settlements. Some of the biggest names in the industry – such as distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson, and drug makers Johnson & Johnson, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals – have made nationwide comparisons with a cumulative value of potentially well over $ 30 billion. Most of the money goes to fighting the epidemic.
But most of these deals have not yet been closed and there has been a very major turnaround. In mid-December, a federal judge rejected OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s comprehensive deal to settle thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids.
The post Teva Pharmaceuticals is found liable in the opioid crisis : NPR first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1641058038;}i:9;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:74:"New York jury finds Teva Pharmaceuticals liable in the opioid crisis : NPR";s:4:"link";s:103:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/new-york-jury-finds-teva-pharmaceuticals-liable-in-the-opioid-crisis-npr/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:20:"Opioid News and Talk";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Fri, 31 Dec 2021 17:25:24 +0000";s:8:"category";s:66:"Opioid CrisiscrisisfindsjuryLiableNPRopioidPharmaceuticalsTevaYork";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://opioidnewsandtalk.com/?p=3393";s:11:"description";s:1428:"
A jury in New York found Teva Pharmaceutical guilty of fueling the country’s deadly opioid epidemic. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: A jury in New York found Teva Pharmaceuticals guilty of fueling the country’s deadly opioid epidemic. The ruling gives momentum to nationwide efforts to hold the drug industry accountable for the epidemic, and comes as new […]
The post New York jury finds Teva Pharmaceuticals liable in the opioid crisis : NPR first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6528:"A jury in New York found Teva Pharmaceutical guilty of fueling the country’s deadly opioid epidemic.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A jury in New York found Teva Pharmaceuticals guilty of fueling the country’s deadly opioid epidemic. The ruling gives momentum to nationwide efforts to hold the drug industry accountable for the epidemic, and comes as new research shows that more than a million people have died of overdoses in the US since the opioid crisis began in the late 1990s.
NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann is here to bring us the latest. Hello Brian.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hello, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What did the jury say? Tell us more about this judgment.
MAN: So Ari, Teva isn’t a really well-known branded company, but they have made huge profits over the years selling these highly addictive opioids. And the jury heard a series of testimony that Teva ruthlessly contributed to what is legally known as a public nuisance by fueling the opioid crisis and rising addiction rates. The jury did not feel that Teva was solely responsible, but they blamed this company most of the time.
During the trial, the jury heard about the company’s really high-pressure tactics to increase opioid sales and flood communities with pills. In a statement today, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Teva misled the American people about the real dangers of opioids. And during the trial, New York State attorneys alleged Teva used aggressive videos to train their sales reps, telling them to ruthlessly increase opioid sales.
SHAPIRO: You handled other similar lawsuits this year – notably one against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. What is the significance of this judgment in the national picture?
MAN: Well, that’s a big deal. You know, these lawsuits against Big Pharma all over the US are based on this experimental legal theory that I mentioned, this public harassment idea. And state courts in California and Oklahoma have only recently dismissed this idea that the opioid crisis can be viewed as a public nuisance that companies should clean up.
But now an Ohio federal court upheld that type of argument last month. We have the verdict of this New York State in a state court today. And now we’re waiting for other judgments in West Virginia and Washington state. So this is an important moment – an important judgment that will be read carefully in the US as other cases advance.
SHAPIRO: Do you have any idea how much Teva has to pay?
MAN: Well, first I should say that Teva made it clear that they are going to appeal. They said in a statement this afternoon that the New York State jury – that is what they claim – was misleading during this trial. If the judgment is confirmed, however, the amount of the damages will be determined by the company after a second procedure by the court. State and local officials say most of the money would be used to fund drug treatment and health programs. The volume of money could be large.
New York attorney general Letitia James has reached agreements with other pharmaceutical companies in the past few months. And in a statement today, she said her office has already secured more than $ 1.5 billion worth of opioid payments from these other drug companies.
SHAPIRO: And today the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new report looking at drug deaths during the opioid crisis – over a million lives lost. And the numbers just keep increasing.
MAN: Yes, that’s right. Public health experts say that drug epidemic that began with these prescription pain relievers has only gotten worse with illegal street drugs – a record number of deaths, more than 100,000 this year alone, according to preliminary data from the CDC. This includes opioids like fentanyl and all other drugs.
This report shows, Ari, that the most vulnerable people here are the young and middle age groups, those between 30 and 40 bearing the brunt of the burden, and the drug deaths among teenagers and people in their twenties has increased nearly 50% over the years a single year – so that young people in families of working age are really devastated by this crisis.
SHAPIRO: This is Brian Mann from NPR, an addiction correspondent. Many Thanks.
MAN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE FROM BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD’S “HEARTS”)
Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. For more information, see the Terms of Use and Permissions pages on our website at www.npr.org.
NPR transcripts are created on a deadline basis by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR programming is the audio recording.
The post New York jury finds Teva Pharmaceuticals liable in the opioid crisis : NPR first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";}s:7:"summary";s:1428:"A jury in New York found Teva Pharmaceutical guilty of fueling the country’s deadly opioid epidemic. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: A jury in New York found Teva Pharmaceuticals guilty of fueling the country’s deadly opioid epidemic. The ruling gives momentum to nationwide efforts to hold the drug industry accountable for the epidemic, and comes as new […]
The post New York jury finds Teva Pharmaceuticals liable in the opioid crisis : NPR first appeared on Opioid News and Talk.";s:12:"atom_content";s:6528:"A jury in New York found Teva Pharmaceutical guilty of fueling the country’s deadly opioid epidemic.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A jury in New York found Teva Pharmaceuticals guilty of fueling the country’s deadly opioid epidemic. The ruling gives momentum to nationwide efforts to hold the drug industry accountable for the epidemic, and comes as new research shows that more than a million people have died of overdoses in the US since the opioid crisis began in the late 1990s.
NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann is here to bring us the latest. Hello Brian.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Hello, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What did the jury say? Tell us more about this judgment.
MAN: So Ari, Teva isn’t a really well-known branded company, but they have made huge profits over the years selling these highly addictive opioids. And the jury heard a series of testimony that Teva ruthlessly contributed to what is legally known as a public nuisance by fueling the opioid crisis and rising addiction rates. The jury did not feel that Teva was solely responsible, but they blamed this company most of the time.
During the trial, the jury heard about the company’s really high-pressure tactics to increase opioid sales and flood communities with pills. In a statement today, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Teva misled the American people about the real dangers of opioids. And during the trial, New York State attorneys alleged Teva used aggressive videos to train their sales reps, telling them to ruthlessly increase opioid sales.
SHAPIRO: You handled other similar lawsuits this year – notably one against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. What is the significance of this judgment in the national picture?
MAN: Well, that’s a big deal. You know, these lawsuits against Big Pharma all over the US are based on this experimental legal theory that I mentioned, this public harassment idea. And state courts in California and Oklahoma have only recently dismissed this idea that the opioid crisis can be viewed as a public nuisance that companies should clean up.
But now an Ohio federal court upheld that type of argument last month. We have the verdict of this New York State in a state court today. And now we’re waiting for other judgments in West Virginia and Washington state. So this is an important moment – an important judgment that will be read carefully in the US as other cases advance.
SHAPIRO: Do you have any idea how much Teva has to pay?
MAN: Well, first I should say that Teva made it clear that they are going to appeal. They said in a statement this afternoon that the New York State jury – that is what they claim – was misleading during this trial. If the judgment is confirmed, however, the amount of the damages will be determined by the company after a second procedure by the court. State and local officials say most of the money would be used to fund drug treatment and health programs. The volume of money could be large.
New York attorney general Letitia James has reached agreements with other pharmaceutical companies in the past few months. And in a statement today, she said her office has already secured more than $ 1.5 billion worth of opioid payments from these other drug companies.
SHAPIRO: And today the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new report looking at drug deaths during the opioid crisis – over a million lives lost. And the numbers just keep increasing.
MAN: Yes, that’s right. Public health experts say that drug epidemic that began with these prescription pain relievers has only gotten worse with illegal street drugs – a record number of deaths, more than 100,000 this year alone, according to preliminary data from the CDC. This includes opioids like fentanyl and all other drugs.
This report shows, Ari, that the most vulnerable people here are the young and middle age groups, those between 30 and 40 bearing the brunt of the burden, and the drug deaths among teenagers and people in their twenties has increased nearly 50% over the years a single year – so that young people in families of working age are really devastated by this crisis.
SHAPIRO: This is Brian Mann from NPR, an addiction correspondent. Many Thanks.
MAN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE FROM BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD’S “HEARTS”)
Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. For more information, see the Terms of Use and Permissions pages on our website at www.npr.org.
NPR transcripts are created on a deadline basis by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR programming is the audio recording.
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