Tag: opioid epidemic

Legalizing And Regulating Drugs Is The Only Way Out Of The Overdose Crisis

Should heroin and cocaine be legally available to people who need and want them? If we are serious about stopping the crisis of drug overdose deaths, that is exactly the kind of profound change we need. Yes, extensive regulations would be necessary. In fact, the whole point of regulating drug production and sales is that we can better control what is being sold and to whom.

After British Columbia’s Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry testified to the all-party health committee in Ottawa in May that regulating these controlled drugs would minimize harms, B.C. Premier David Eby said he disagreed. He is quoted saying that “in a reality-based, real-world level, (it) doesn’t make any sense.” But does our current approach of drug prohibition “make sense?”

Since the overdose crisis was declared in 2016, illicit drug toxicity deaths have become the leading cause of unnatural death in B.C. and the leading cause of death from all causes for those aged 10 to 59. More than 44,000 people have died from drug poisoning in Canada since 2016, and more than one-third of those were in B.C. An average of 22 people are dying every day in Canada because the illicit supply of drugs is toxic.

Keep reading

Clarence Thomas appears open to making drug addiction illegal

U.S. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas identified a previous ruling that he would like to upend.

The conservative majority sided with an Oregon city that prohibited unhoused people from sleeping on public land, and Thomas said in his opinion in the case that he would like to “dispose” of a 1962 ruling that struck down a California law that criminalized being addicted to narcotics, reported Newsweek.

“In an appropriate case, the Court should certainly correct this error,” Thomas wrote.

The court relied on that decades-old ruling in Robinson v. California to decide that penalizing homeless people for sleeping on the streets when no other shelter was available did not violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Keep reading

Afghan heroin shortage could lead to more overdose deaths – UN

The Taliban’s crackdown on poppy cultivation in Afghanistan  could trigger a spike in overdose deaths if the global heroin lack is filled by more potent synthetic compounds, the UN has warned.

A report released on Wednesday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) assessed the impact of a ban on opium cultivation, production, processing and trade which the Taliban reintroduced in April 2022. It came too late to affect the harvest that year, but the crackdown caused output to shrink 95% in 2023, it said.

The loss of this supply from Afghanistan, previously the world’s dominant producer of opium and heroin, was partially compensated by Myanmar, where there was a 36% increase in output. Nevertheless, global opium production fell by 74% last year, according to UN research.

Prices of opiates in Afghanistan skyrocketed last year, but the availability of old stockpiles meant that no real shortage was reported in destination markets until early 2024, the report said.

Preliminary field observations indicate that this year the supply may slightly increase, but Afghanistan is unlikely to “reach the very high production observed in the years before 2023.” If the crunch continues, the purity of heroin on the global market may decline, and the demand for substitute opiates will surge, UNODC has predicted.

Keep reading

If Opiates Are Killing Americans, Why Won’t the FDA Let Us Try an Alternative?

For more than a decade, patients who’ve needed certain controlled medications have suffered from ill-advised, untenable policies the U.S. government has instituted, allegedly to mitigate the ever-surging numbers of drug overdose deaths. These policies have been a dismal failure on multiple fronts: Not only have deaths continued to surge, but the terrifying intrusion of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) into the practice of medicine has had a chilling effect on patients and their physicians. 

As the DEA relentlessly tightens production quotas on medications for pain and ADHD, it has begun tracking every pill, making doctors increasingly reluctant to prescribe any controlled drugs and leaving many patients in a lurch. Perhaps worse, DEA production quotas have caused the back-order of multiple drugs—an increasingly common burden for patients, even those fortunate to have doctors willing to risk a DEA drug bust for simply doing their job.

The ill and disabled suffer the most. Virtually all patients who have diseases or chronic pain conditions will say that the emergency department is the single worst place to go for relief from severe pain. Doctors and hospitals are often more concerned about law enforcement looking over their shoulders than patient care. Patients desperate for pain relief often turn to street drugs, where they fall victim to counterfeit pills that contain fentanyl (or worse) instead of a legal opioid. 

By contrast, doctors in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and throughout Europe have been using a fixed-dose, inhaled general anesthesia medicine that effectively reduces acute pain—a medication denied to Americans by a seemingly indifferent Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Doctors commonly used methoxyflurane (Penthrane) as a general anesthetic in the 1960s and 1970s. But, because it had toxic effects on the liver and kidneys, anesthesiologists gradually stopped using it and turned to safer anesthetics. In 2005, the FDA removed methoxyflurane from the market.

However, an Australian company, Medical Developments International, has been marketing a lower-dose, self-administered, single-use nasal inhaler version of methoxyflurane for 30 years. Its brand name is Penthrox, though many people refer to it as the “green whistle,” because of the package it comes in. People living in Europe have had access to the green whistle since 2015, and Canadian patients have had it since 2018. 

In 2020, a randomized controlled clinical trial in the U.K. demonstrated that the drug saved an average of 71 minutes in providing pain relief to accident and emergency department patients. Likewise, a 2020 Australian trial found that a methoxyflurane inhaler “was associated with clinically significant lower pain scores compared to standard therapy.” While it may cause drowsiness in some people, methoxyflurane at this low dose has few adverse effects, such as liver and kidney toxicity, and there are no reported cases of addiction or abuse. 

In 2022, the FDA finally lifted its “clinical hold” on methoxyflurane nasal inhalers and has allowed its manufacturer to resume FDA-supervised clinical trials. Unfortunately, this is an unnecessary waste of time.

Keep reading

Trump says death sentences for dealers will solve U.S. drug problem

Former President Donald Trump said soft sentences for drug dealers have helped fuel fentanyl overdose deaths in the U.S.

Trump, 77, is running against President Joe Biden in the presidential election this November.

“So many are dying where they think they’re getting something and going to have a little fun on a Friday night and all of sudden their dead,” Trump said on Fox News.

“You’ll never really solve the drug problem unless you do what other countries do – and that’s the death penalty for drug dealers,” Trump said during the interview. “A drug dealer on average will kill, during that person’s life, 500 people. Unless you have a death penalty. Right now, they don’t even get charged with anything.”

Thirty-four countries apply the death for some drug crimes, according to a 2023 report from Harm Reduction International. The report noted that Pakistan removed the death penalty as a possible punishment for certain violations of its Control of Narcotics Substances Act.

Illicit fentanyl killed nearly 38,000 Americans in the first six months of 2023, according to a 2024 DEA report. Synthetic opioids were involved in 74,225 deaths in 2022 – 68% of the total 111,036 deaths that year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Keep reading

Biden admin backs ‘harm reduction groups’ that give free drug paraphernalia to addicts

President Biden and his administration have expressed support for providing free drug paraphernalia to fentanyl and other illicit drug users, an effort made feasible by controversial harm reduction groups that believe supplying addicts with clean smoking gear would reduce overdose deaths by eliminating injection methods.

However, a study released in February by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that smoking fentanyl was increasingly linked to overdose deaths in 27 states and Washington, DC. Researchers found that 74 percent of overdose deaths were linked to smoking fentanyl, while fentanyl overdose deaths through injection plummeted.

The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration has embraced the approach of harm reduction groups, despite the fact that these groups have received widespread criticism, and their efforts, which have failed to create significant positive outcomes, have been banned in numerous jurisdictions.

Critics of harm reduction groups believe supplying addicts with free drug paraphernalia only enables their addictions, and think alternative methods such as rehabilitation and therapy are better options. Those who favor harm reduction measures believe that providing clean drug equipment to users, such as smoke pipes and needles, and creating so-called “safe injection sites,” would prevent overdose deaths and the spread of infections caused by sharing needles. However, their methods have been proven as failed experiments.

Keep reading

Marijuana Terpenes Are ‘As Effective As Morphine’ For Pain Relief And Have Fewer Side Effects, New Study Finds

A new federally funded study into the effects of cannabis terpenes suggests that the compounds could be “potential therapeutics for chronic neuropathic pain,” finding that an injected dose of the compounds produced a “roughly equal” reduction in pain markers when compared to a smaller dose of morphine. Terpenes also appeared to enhance the efficacy of morphine when given in combination.

Unlike with morphine, however, none of the studied terpenes produced a meaningful reward response, the research found, indicating that “terpenes could be effective analgesics with no rewarding or dysphoric side effects.”

Notably, terpenes that were vaporized or administered orally seemed to have little impact on pain.

The paper, “Terpenes from Cannabis sativa induce antinociception in a mouse model of chronic neuropathic pain via activation of adenosine A2A receptors,” was published this month in PAIN, the journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain. The 14-author team behind the report includes researchers from the University of Arizona’s Comprehensive Center for Pain and Addiction as well as the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“A question that we’ve been very interested in is could terpenes be used to manage chronic pain?” lead researcher John Streicher, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine in Tucson, said in a press release about the study. “What we found is that terpenes are really good at relieving a specific type of chronic pain with side effects that are low and manageable.”

Authors note that while primary chemical components in marijuana, like THC and CBD, have been shown in some studies to be effective in managing chronic pain, “their efficacy is generally moderate, and THC is burdened by unwanted psychoactive side effects.”

“These limits have focused attention on other potentially therapeutic components of Cannabis,” they wrote, “including minor cannabinoids, flavonoids, and terpenes.”

Keep reading

Fentanyl Fear Factor: White House Leverages Drug Scare to Push for Controversial Surveillance Powers

In a recent public appeal, the Biden administration has urged the reauthorization Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) before it expires on April 19. Bill Burns, the CIA Director, issued a statement, alleging the significant role of the FISA powers in fighting threats against national security, especially the illicit trafficking of fentanyl into the United States.

Burns highlighted the gravity of the fentanyl threat, saying, “The threat to the US posed by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids is real. Section 702 is an essential tool in CIA’s mission to protect the American people from a range of threats, including illicit fentanyl trafficking. Without this vital program, CIA simply would not be able to defend our country as effectively in as many dangerous corners of the world.”

Echoing the CIA Director’s stance, the White House has also underlined the importance of the reauthorization bill in ensuring national security. National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby further stressed the significance of bipartisan support for this endeavor. He stated, “Obviously we strongly support the bipartisan effort to get 702 reauthorized. It is vital to our ability to defend ourselves, defend … the American people, and we very much want to see it move forward — get extended and move forward.”

It’s worth noting that Section 702 of FISA authorizes US government officials to collect electronic communications without needing a warrant. This provision has been a point of contention, with privacy advocates arguing that it infringes on personal freedom.

Keep reading

CIA Wants Congress to Expand Top-Secret Eavesdropping Program To ‘Fight Against Fentanyl Crisis’

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), along with other members of the U.S. intelligence community, are pushing for Congress to expand Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 in order to fight the ongoing fentanyl crisis.

According to the Brennan Center of Justice, Section 702, “Authorizes the government to collect the communications of non-Americans located abroad without a warrant from a court. While this surveillance is supposed to target foreigners, it inevitably sweeps in Americans’ private phone calls, emails, and text messages too.”

USA Today has reported that top CIA officials spent most of 2023-2024 urging members of Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the FISA Act of 1978.

However, CIA officials believe in its current form, Section 702 limits the intelligence community from targeting everyone involved in the fentanyl trade overseas and are advocating lawmakers to expand Section 702 so U.S. spies will have more liberty when it comes to going after criminals engaged in the fentanyl trade.

Many lawmakers are skeptical of expanding Section 702 due to the CIA previously misusing the law to spy on American citizens.

Keep reading

The War on Drugs Is Also a War on Pain Patients

In a March 22 opinion column in the New York Times entitled “The DEA Needs to Stay Out of Medicine,” Vanderbilt University Medical Center associate professor of anesthesiology and pain management Shravani Durbhakula, MD, documents powerfully how patients suffering from severe pain—many of them terminal cancer patients—have become collateral casualties in the government’s war on drugs.

Decrying the Drug Enforcement Administration’s progressive tightening of opioid manufacturing quotas, Dr. Durbhakula writes:

In theory, fewer opioids sold means fewer inappropriate scripts filled, which should curb the diversion of prescription opioids for illicit purposes and decrease overdose deaths — right?

I can tell you from the front lines that that’s not quite right. Prescription opioids once drove the opioid crisis. But in recent years opioid prescriptions have significantly fallen, while overdose deaths have been at a record high. America’s new wave of fatalities is largely a result of the illicit market, specifically illicit fentanyl. And as production cuts contribute to the reduction of the already strained supply of legal, regulated prescription opioids, drug shortages stand to affect the more than 50 million people suffering from chronic pain in more ways than at the pharmacy counter.

Dr. Durbhakula provides stories of patients having to travel long distances to see their doctors in person due to DEA requirements about opioid prescriptions. However, despite their efforts, they find that many of the pharmacies do not have the opioids they require because of quotas. She writes:

Health care professionals and pharmacies in this country are chained by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Our patients’ stress is the result not of an orchestrated set of practice guidelines or a comprehensive clinical policy but rather of one government agency’s crude, broad‐​stroke technique to mitigate a public health crisis through manufacturing limits — the gradual and repeated rationing of how much opioids can be produced by legitimate entities.

In the essay, Dr.Durbhakula does not question or challenge the false narrative that the overdose crisis originated with doctors “overprescribing” opioids to their pain patients.

Keep reading