Sunday, February 24, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Essential Health Benefits” Rule Covers Drug Addiction and Alcohol Abuse Treatment
The federal government on Wednesday issued a final rule on
“essential health benefits” that most health insurance plans must offer
next year, including treatment of drug addiction and alcohol abuse.
The New York Times
reports the Obama administration says 32 million people will gain
access to coverage of mental health care as a result of the new
benefits. An additional 30 million people who already have some mental
health coverage will see an improvement in their benefits, Secretary of
Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said. She noted the new
ruling will make it easier for consumers to compare health plans.
In the past, nearly 20 percent of individuals purchasing insurance
didn’t have access to mental health services, and nearly one-third had
no coverage for substance use disorder services, according to a
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) news release.
The new rule provides more Americans with access to quality health care
that includes coverage for mental health and substance use disorder
services, HHS states.
Each state will set its own benchmark insurance plan that reflects
coverage typically offered by employers, the article notes. More than 30
states are using a plan offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield as their
benchmark.
Heroin Addiction on the Rise in New York State
A growing number of people are becoming addicted to heroin
in New York state, according to drug treatment counselors and police.
They say many people have switched to heroin from prescription
painkillers, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, the Associated Press reports.
Police report the people they arrest for heroin often started on
painkillers prescribed by a doctor, then started purchasing them on the
street. They turned to heroin because it is less expensive.
Many areas around the country are seeing a surge in heroin addiction
that stems from prescription drug abuse. A study published in July 2012
in the New England Journal of Medicine
found OxyContin abuse has decreased now that the painkiller has been
reformulated to make it more difficult to misuse. Many people who abused
the drug have switched to heroin.
The study included more than 2,500 people who were dependent on
opioids, who were followed between July 2009 and March 2012. During that
time, there was a 17 percent decrease in OxyContin abuse. In 2010, the
company that makes OxyContin introduced a new version of the drug that
is more difficult to inhale or inject. During the same period, heroin
abuse doubled.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Drug-Sniffing Dog
The Supreme Court ruled police do not have to extensively
document a drug-sniffing dog’s expertise to justify relying on the
canine to search a vehicle, according to The Washington Post.
The unanimous ruling overturned a Florida Supreme Court decision
involving Aldo, a German shepherd. After the dog detected drugs in a
pickup truck, a police officer searched the truck and found 200
pseudoephedrine pills and 8,000 matches, which are used to make
methamphetamine. The Florida Supreme Court ruled police must compile
detailed evidence of the dog’s reliability before probable cause to
search the vehicle is established.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan suggested
proper training and certification of a dog, instead of how it performs
in the field, could be enough. “The question — similar to every inquiry
into probable cause — is whether all the facts surrounding a dog’s
alert, viewed through the lens of common sense, would make a reasonably
prudent person think that a search would reveal contraband or evidence
of a crime,” she wrote. “A sniff is up to snuff when it meets that test.
. . . Aldo’s did.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on a second dog-sniffing case, involving a chocolate Lab named Franky.
Florida’s Supreme Court ruled the dog’s ability to detect marijuana
growing inside a home in Miami by sniffing outside the house was
unconstitutional. The state’s attorney general is asking the U.S.
Supreme Court to reverse the ruling.
Franky, who recently retired after seven years with the Miami-Dade
Police Department, is responsible for the seizure of more than 2.5 tons
of marijuana and $4.9 million in drug-contaminated money.
Mapping Location of Alcohol Outlets, Drug Activity and Crime Could Aid Prevention
Mapping the location of alcohol outlets, drug activity and
violent crimes could help police prevent violence, a new study suggests.
Researchers at the University of Michigan studied the relationship
between violent crimes in Boston drug markets, and the types and
densities of alcohol outlets in those areas, MedicalXpress
reports. They analyzed data on homicides and aggravated assault
incidents, drug arrests and 911 calls, along with 2009 alcohol outlet
data from the Massachusetts Alcohol Beverage Control Commission. They
also examined census data.
They found areas with the highest levels of violent crime were poorer
and had greater numbers of alcohol outlets and higher drug arrest
rates.
“Identification of such ‘hot spots’ may help in identifying
micro-environments: blocks or intersections whose characteristics
facilitate violent behavior. Our study helps identify such
micro-environments, an emerging area of criminology research, in
Boston,” the authors wrote in the American Journal of Public Health.
Number of Deadly Drug Overdoses Rises for 11th Year
The number of deadly drug overdoses in the United States
increased for the 11th consecutive year, according to new government
data. More than 22,000 people died of overdoses involving prescription
drugs in 2010, the Los Angeles Times reports.
In total, 38,329 people died of drug overdoses that year. Of the 57
percent whose deaths involved prescription drugs, three-quarters were
due to painkillers such as OxyContin and Percocet, according to the
National Center for Health Statistics. They reported their findings this
week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
More than 74 percent of deaths due to prescription drugs were accidental, while 17 percent were suicides, the article notes.
Opioids were found in 77 percent of overdoses involving
benzodiazepines such as Valium, Xanax or Ativan. They were also involved
in 65 percent of overdoses with antiepileptic or anti-Parkinsonian
drugs, 47 percent of overdoses involving antidepressants, and 56 percent
of overdoses with fever-reducing and anti-inflammatory medications.
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