Tag: opioid epidemic

The Truth About Ron DeSantis’ Fentanyl Horror Story

The second Republican debate of the 2024 presidential campaign cycle took place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday, and at various points throughout the night the topic turned to drug policy.

The candidates argued over the proliferation of fentanyl—the synthetic opioid significantly more potent than morphine or heroin that is often found mixed with other narcotics purchased on the black market. Specifically, the candidates squabbled over who would most aggressively weaponize the military and federal power in an attempt to prevent illicit fentanyl from reaching American shores.

Some of the candidates deployed anecdotes gleaned from the campaign trail of people whose loved ones died of fentanyl overdoses in order to justify increasingly oppressive drug policy. But Gov. Ron DeSantis’s example is much more complicated than he let on.

“In Florida, we had an infant, 18 months [old],” DeSantis said. “Parents rented an Airbnb, and apparently the people that had rented it before were using drugs. The infant was crawling, the toddler was crawling on the carpet and ingested fentanyl residue and died. Are we just going to sit here and let this happen, this carnage happen in our country? I am not going to do that.” As he has in the past, DeSantis used the story to illustrate the need for tougher drug and immigration policy, up to and including shooting people as they cross the border with Mexico.

DeSantis’s campaign did not respond to a clarifying question by press time, but he seemed to be referring to Enora Lavenir, the 19-month-old daughter of a French couple vacationing in Wellington, a small Florida town near West Palm Beach. The Lavenirs rented a four-bedroom house through Airbnb, where on August 7, 2021, Enora’s mother Lydie Lavenir found her unconscious and foaming at the mouth. Paramedics rushed the girl to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Last year, the Lavenirs filed a wrongful death suit against Airbnb, the property’s owners, and the most recent previous renter. The lawsuit has since been amended to add additional defendants including HomeAway, the parent company of Vrbo, another home-rental service through which the prior tenant rented the house. According to the lawsuit, “the medical examiner detected a lethal level of Fentanyl in Enora’s blood and determined that her cause of death was acute Fentanyl toxicity. Toxicology readings indicated a quick death, ruling out the possibility that Enora came into contact with Fentanyl anywhere else but in the Airbnb rental.”

Contrary to DeSantis’s statement at the debate, the lawsuit does not claim that Enora was “crawling on the carpet and ingested fentanyl residue.” In fact, the suit does not speculate exactly how Enora came into contact with the drug; it merely alleges that Airbnb and Vrbo have “known for years that drug use is prevalent in [their] properties” and “that drugs, paraphernalia, and residue are frequently left behind in rentals, that there is a substantial risk of them being left behind, and that when they are left behind they pose a fatal risk to future guests, including children and infants.”

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Oregon’s Drug Problems Were Not Caused by Decriminalization

Three years ago, 58 percent of Oregon voters approved Measure 110, a groundbreaking ballot initiative that eliminated criminal penalties for low-level possession of illegal drugs. Last week, a group called the Coalition to Fix and Improve Ballot Measure 110 proposed two versions of an initiative aimed at reversing that reform, and recent polling suggests most Oregonians are open to the idea.

There are two main reasons for that reversal of public opinion, neither of which goes to the heart of the moral and practical case for decriminalization. Oregonians are understandably troubled by the nuisances associated with public drug use, and they are dismayed that, despite Measure 110’s promise of more funding for treatment, opioid-related deaths have continued to increase.

The main idea behind Measure 110 was that consuming politically disfavored intoxicants should not be treated as a crime. Since drug use itself violates no one’s rights, it is hard to argue with that premise.

Eliminating criminal penalties for drug possession, however, does not require tolerating conduct that offends, incommodes, or alarms people who have an equal right to use sidewalks, parks, and other taxpayer-funded facilities. That problem—which many major cities face, regardless of whether they routinely arrest people for drug possession—is distinct from drug use per se, just as disorderly alcohol-related conduct is distinct from drinking per se.

The alcohol comparison is instructive in another way. Even during Prohibition, which banned the production and distribution of “intoxicating liquors,” drinking was not a crime. The situation created by Measure 110 is analogous, with all the dangers that criminalizing the drug supply entails.

Just as alcohol prohibition exposed drinkers to the potentially deadly hazards of bootleg booze, drug prohibition forces users to rely on black-market products of uncertain provenance and composition. Measure 110 did nothing to address that problem, which has led to record numbers of drug-related deaths across the country.

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Overdose crisis reaches historic levels in New York City

The overdose crisis has reached historic levels in New York City, according to new data from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Provisional data shows there were 3,026 overdose deaths in New York City in 2022, the highest total since the department began recording such incidents in 2000.

Newly released data shows that overdose deaths increased by 12% from 2021 to 2022. Fentanyl was detected in 81% of drug overdose deaths in New York City, according to the data. Fentanyl is an opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, the department states.

The report found that Black and Latino New Yorkers had the highest rates of overdose death and the largest increases in rate from 2021 to 2022.

Adults ages 55 to 64 continued to have the highest rate of overdose, followed by adults ages 45 to 54, according to the report.

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Fentanyl-Laced Coke and Meth Is Not Fuelling America’s Overdose Crisis

“Overdose deaths from fentanyl-laced cocaine and meth have risen 50-fold,” screamed the Daily Mail about a new study into the US opioid crisis.

The Mail, reporting on the study published last week in the scientific journal Addiction, warned that “many users unwittingly consume fentanyl, as it is frequently used as a cutting agent in cocaine and other illicit drugs to extend the supply and the high”.

Reporting on the same study, carried out by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), ABC News told its readers: “Many people who use drugs like cocaine recreationally may not be aware these drugs are laced with fentanyl… this could be fueling unintentional overdoses, according to experts.”

But is this really happening?

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Prescription opioid shipments declined sharply even as fatal overdoses increased, new data shows

The number of prescription opioid pills shipped in the U.S. in the second half of the 2010s decreased sharply even as a nationwide overdose crisis continued to deepen, according to data released Tuesday.

The decline in painkiller prescriptions — finally dropping below the quantities sold in the mid-2000s when the overdose epidemic accelerated — happened after state and federal governments tightened prescribing guidelines and state, local and Native American tribal governments sued the industry over the toll of the addictive drugs.

“We are still at an epidemic proportion of pills,” Peter Mougey, a lawyer representing governments that are suing drugmakers, distribution companies and pharmacies, said in an online news conference to release the data Tuesday.

The distribution data is being released by lawyers after a judge ordered the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to share it with the plaintiffs. The governments assert that the companies should have done more to stop the flow of opioids when they saw that more than necessary were flowing to pharmacies and patients.

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As more children die from fentanyl, some prosecutors are charging their parents with murder

Madison Bernard climbed into bed before dawn with her toddler, Charlotte, who was asleep next to a nightstand strewn with straws, burned tinfoil and a white powder.

Hours later, the mother woke and found her daughter struggling to breathe, according to investigators who described the scene in court documents.

After being rushed in an ambulance to a hospital, the 15-month-old girl died from a fentanyl overdose. Her mother and father, whom authorities said brought the drugs into their California home, were charged with murder and are awaiting trial.

The couple has pleaded not guilty but are part of a growing number of parents across the U.S. being charged amid an escalating opioid crisis that has claimed an increasing number of children as collateral victims.

Some 20 states have so-called “drug-induced homicide” laws, which allow prosecutors to press murder or manslaughter charges against anyone who supplies or exposes a person to drugs causing a fatal overdose. The laws are intended to target drug dealers.

In California, where the Legislature has failed to pass such laws, prosecutors in at least three counties are turning to drunk driving laws to charge parents whose children die from fentanyl overdose. It’s a unique approach that will soon be tested in court as the cases head to trial.

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Vaccines to prevent fentanyl, heroin overdose close to human trials

Researchers are expected to begin human clinical trials in early 2024 to test the safety and efficacy of vaccines to prevent heroin and fentanyl overdoses. While there is still a way to go, if approved, the vaccines could revolutionize the treatment of opioid addiction and reduce the number of deaths resulting from overdose.

Opioids – especially synthetic opioids – are the main driver of drug-related overdose deaths. The availability of drugs like heroin and fentanyl continues to feed the problem of opioid dependence and places users at risk of death. They’re also difficult drugs to quit.

Drug use and associated overdoses not only burden the loved ones of the person who died, but they also inflict an economic burden. In 2017, the costs for opioid use disorder and fatal opioid overdose in the US were estimated to be US$1.02 trillion.

While the streets are unlikely to ever be clear of drugs like heroin and fentanyl – and, even if they were, they’d probably be replaced by other, equally damaging drugs – researchers at the University of Montana (UM) are close to trialing the next best thing in tackling the opioid epidemic: vaccines to prevent fentanyl and heroin overdose and aid in treating opioid dependence.

The development of the vaccines began with Marco Pravetoni, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington, who, along with his research team, has been working on vaccines against opioids for more than 10 years.

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Federal Lawmakers Are Preparing To Reintroduce Legislation To Regulate Kratom Amid Pushback To FDA-Proposed Ban

As federal lawmakers prepare to reintroduce a bill to regulate kratom, a former Trump administration drug czar stressed the need to beat back “misinformation” from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has attempted to ban the substance in the U.S. and abroad.

Members of the American Kratom Association (AKA) said during a webinar Tuesday that they expect federal legislation to regulate the drug “will be filed shortly” in Congress and could be taken up later this session.

The text of the forthcoming bill “will be word-for-word the same” as congressional legislation introduced last session, said Mac Haddow, a senior fellow at AKA. The title, however, will be updated to the Kratom Consumer Protection Act, a nod to model legislation that AKA has been lobbying for at the state and federal levels.

Sponsors will include, on the Senate side, Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), who also sponsored last session’s bill, the Federal Clarity for Kratom Consumers Act. In the House, lead sponsors will be Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jack Bergman (R-MI). Pocan sponsored last year’s bill in the House, while Bergman is a new addition.

The forthcoming legislation’s bipartisan sponsorship in each chamber—specifically pairing a “very liberal” elected official with a “very conservative” one—is designed to highlight “that this is not a partisan issue,” Haddow said. “This is about good policy.”

If the bill becomes law, it would require FDA to take further steps to evaluate the health and safety of kratom and would also prohibit the agency from regulating kratom products in a way that’s more restrictive than regulations for food or dietary supplements.

Neither chamber took action on the proposal last session, but AKA expects more traction—and more sponsors—on this year’s bill.

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U.S. Citizens Were 89% of Convicted Fentanyl Traffickers in 2022

Fentanyl overdoses tragically caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths last year. Many politicians who want to end U.S. asylum law claim that immigrants crossing the border illegally are responsible. An NPR‐​Ipsos poll found that 39 percent of Americans and 60 percent of Republicans believe, “Most of the fentanyl entering the U.S. is smuggled in by unauthorized migrants crossing the border illegally.” A more accurate summary is that fentanyl is overwhelmingly smuggled by U.S. citizens, almost entirely for U.S. citizen consumers.

Here are the facts:

  • Fentanyl smuggling is ultimately funded by U.S. consumers who pay for illicit opioids: nearly 99 percent of whom are U.S. citizens.
  • In 2022, U.S. citizens were 89 percent of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers—12 times greater than convictions of illegal immigrants for the same offense.
  • In 2023, 93 percent of fentanyl seizures occurred at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes, so U.S. citizens (who are subject to less scrutiny) when crossing legally are the best smugglers.
  • The location of smuggling makes sense because hard drugs at ports of entry are at least 96 percent less likely to be stopped than people crossing illegally between them.
  • At most, just 0.009 percent of the people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl whatsoever.
  • Each individual busted for fentanyl by Border Patrol possessed, on average, half as much fentanyl as each person busted at ports of entry in 2023 (10 versus 20 pounds).
  • The government exacerbated the problem by banning most legal cross‐​border traffic in 2020 and 2021, accelerating a switch to fentanyl (the easiest‐​to‐​conceal drug).
  • During the travel restrictions, fentanyl seizures at ports quadrupled from fiscal year 2019 to 2021. Fentanyl went from a third of combined heroin and fentanyl seizures to over 90 percent.
  • Annual deaths from fentanyl nearly doubled from 2019 to 2021 after the government banned most travel (and asylum).

It is monstrous that tens of thousands of people are dying unnecessarily every year from fentanyl. But banning asylum and limiting travel backfired. Reducing deaths requires figuring out the cause, not jumping to blame a group that is not responsible. Instead of attacking immigrants, policymakers should focus on effective solutions that help people at risk of a fentanyl overdose.

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A Netflix Drama Reinforces Pernicious Misconceptions About Pain Treatment

Former New York Times reporter Barry Meier, whose book about OxyContin is the main basis for the Netflix drama Painkiller, acknowledges that the drug is “valuable for treating severe pain caused by cancer or chronic health issues.” The problem, he says, was that OxyContin’s manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, “could only make billions from it by lying, by saying it was good for everyday, common pain.”

Netflix’s six-part miniseries highlights that second point, vividly portraying Purdue Pharma’s reckless marketing of OxyContin. But it dismisses the caveat: that there are legitimate medical uses for this drug and other prescription opioids, which can make life bearable for patients who otherwise would suffer from excruciating pain.

Like the 2022 Hulu drama Dopesick, Painkiller embraces an indiscriminate aversion to opioids. The same attitude has inspired ham-handed restrictions on pain medication, which have helped drive drug-related deaths to record levels while leaving millions of patients to suffer needlessly.

Although Meier’s take on opioids is more nuanced than the one presented by this adaptation of his book, he shares with the screenwriters a desire to pin a complex, long-running social problem on a single villain. That much is clear from the subtitle of his book: “An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic.”

As Meier’s former employer frequently puts it, OxyContin is “widely blamed” for “igniting the opioid crisis.” But is it rightly blamed?

OxyContin, which was introduced in 1996, is an extended-release version of oxycodone, a semisynthetic opioid that had long been available in products such as Percocet and Percodan. OxyContin contained a larger dose of oxycodone, which was supposed to be gradually released over a 12-hour period, such that a patient could obtain steady pain relief by taking two pills a day.

That safeguard, according to labeling approved by the Food and Drug Administration, was “believed” to reduce the drug’s abuse potential. As it turned out, the original design could be readily defeated by crushing the tablets and snorting the powder.

According to federal survey data, however, nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers rose for 11 consecutive years before OxyContin was introduced. And regardless of how appealing it may have been to drug users, OxyContin never accounted for a very large share of the opioid analgesic market.

During litigation, Purdue presented data indicating that OxyContin accounted for just 3.3 percent of pain pills sold in the United States from 2006 through 2012. After adjusting for potency, ProPublica calculated that the product’s “real” market share was more like 16 percent.

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