Surge in Heroin and Prescription Opioid Use Has Deadly Consequences, Police Say

By Join Together Staff | April 17, 2014 | 1 Comment | Filed in Community Related, Drugs & Prevention

The surge in the use of heroin and prescription opioids is resulting in more deaths than violent crimes and car crashes in many communities, law enforcement officials said this week. They met in Washington, D.C. to discuss the problem and possible solutions.

Many overdose deaths are due to heroin, which is easily available and potent, USA Today reports. Heroin costs between $4 and $20 per bag, depending on the location—much less expensive than prescription opioids.

In 2012, there were 730 drug overdose deaths in New York City—nearly double the number of homicides, the article notes. A government report called the National Drug Threat Assessment found between 2009 and 2013, heroin seizures increased 87 percent. The average size of the seizures increased 81 percent during that period.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told law enforcement officials, “The consciousness of the nation has not really focused on the problem. People saw this more as a state and local problem. …This is truly a national problem. Standing by itself, the heroin problem is worthy of our national attention.”

Other meeting participants included FBI Director James Comey, Drug Enforcement Administration Chief Michele Leonhart and Michael Botticelli, Acting Director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, as well as small-town police officials.

Many police officials said they are hindered in their efforts to fight overdoses by the lack of current data, according to NBC News. Some local police are trying creative solutions. In Washington, D.C., police have started mapping locations where the drug overdose antidote naloxone is used by firefighters and emergency medical technicians, in order to pinpoint areas of high-drug use. New York City is trying to create similar data.

Introverts With Few Positive Feelings at Higher Risk of Drug Abuse: Study

By Join Together Staff | April 17, 2014 | 2 Comments | Filed in Addiction, Drugs& Research

Introverts who tend to have fewer positive feelings, or to not be attracted to rewards in life, are more likely to abuse drugs than more extroverted people with positive emotions, a new study suggests.

Studying personality may help scientists better understand and treat substance use problems, according to the researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Researcher Dr. Sergi Ferré said people who are extroverted and have more positive emotions may be more open to rewards other than good feelings that come from using a drug. For instance, they may feel rewarded by certain social situations such as winning a game or receiving a promotion.

In contrast, people who are introverted and have fewer positive feelings may have less interest in these rewards, and instead be more influenced by pleasant sensations that come from using drugs.

The researchers found having a tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anxiety or depressed mood, is associated with substance use disorder. Having a difficult time stopping a behavior or action once it is started is also linked with an increased risk of substance abuse, The Huffington Post reports.

The researchers noted the likelihood a person will abuse drugs involves many factors, including genes, personality, environment and past drug use. The findings appear in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Commission Asks For Shorter Drug Trafficking Sentences

By Join Together Staff | April 17, 2014 | Leave a comment | Filed in Drugs &Legal

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which advises federal judges, is recommending shorter prison sentences for most federal drug trafficking offenders, according to Reuters. Up to 70 percent of these offenders would receive shorter prison sentences if the commission’s recommendations are not opposed by Congress.

“This modest reduction in drug penalties is an important step toward reducing the problem of prison overcrowding at the federal level in a proportionate and fair manner,” Commission Chair Judge Patti B. Saris said in a news release. “Reducing the federal prison population has become urgent, with that population almost three times where it was in 1991.”

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testified in favor of changing federal guidelines to reduce the average sentence for drug dealers. He told the Sentencing Commission the Obama Administration supports changing guidelines to reduce the average drug sentence by about one year, from 62 months to 51 months. The proposed changes would reduce the federal prison population by about 6,550 inmates over the next five years, the article notes. Currently, half of the 215,000 inmates in the federal prison system are serving time for drug crimes.

The new rules will go into effect on November 1, unless Congress votes to stop the sentencing guidelines, the article notes. Drug traffickers with the greatest quantities of drugs would not receive reduced sentences.

Reducing sentences could result in less leverage for prosecutors, warned Scott Burns, Executive Director of the National District Attorneys Association. He said district attorneys often use the threat of long sentences to convince drug offenders who have witnessed larger crimes to cooperate. “They can use the leverage of the threat of harsher punishment in order to solve murder cases and prosecute drug kingpins,” he said.

APRIL 16 v 33 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB 

We may throw the dice,
    but the Lord determines how they fall.

STEP 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.

  What are you waiting for ! HE HAS A PURPOSE ! HE HAS A PLAN ! You can roll the dice all you want but you will never control the outcome . Haven ' t you made enough of a mess ! All you need to do is step three pray ,   relax , live , laugh , love , forgive , forget , and breathe ! 

Romans 12 : 2 - And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

By Joseph Dickerson
  

Almost One-Fourth of Pregnant Women on Medicaid Filled Opioid Prescriptions: Study
 

By Join Together Staff | April 15, 2014 | Leave a comment | Filed in Parenting & Prescription Drugs


Almost one-quarter of pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid in 2007 filled a prescription for opioids, a new study finds. The risks of opioids to a developing fetus are largely unknown, The New York Times reports.

An estimated 1.1 million pregnant women were enrolled in Medicaid in 2007. The program covers medical expenses for 45 percent of births in the United States, according to the newspaper. The study, published in Obstetrics & Gynecology, found the rate of opioid prescribing is on the rise—18.5 percent of pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid in 2000 filled opioid prescriptions, compared with 23 percent in 2007.

“To hear that there’s such a high use of narcotics in pregnancy when I see so many women who worry about a cup of coffee seems incongruous,” Dr. Joshua A. Copel, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the Yale School of Medicine, told The New York Times.

The reason for the increase in opioid prescribing for pregnant women is unclear, but may be partly due to back pain.

An article published earlier this year in Anesthesiology, which included 500,000 privately insured women, found 14 percent were given opioid painkillers at least once during their pregnancy. Both studies found codeine and hydrocodone were the most commonly prescribed opioids during pregnancy. Most of the women took the drugs for a week or less.

The Medicaid study found stark regional differences in opioid prescribing. Among pregnant women in Utah, 41.6 percent were prescribed opioids, compared with 35.6 percent in Idaho, 9.6 percent in New York and 9.5 percent in Oregon. “The regional variation really concerned me the most,” said Dr. Pamela Flood, a professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at Stanford University. “It’s hard to imagine that pregnant women in the South have all that much more pain than pregnant women in the Northeast.”

Bipartisan Senate Group Forms to Fight Prescription Drug Abuse
By Join Together Staff | April 15, 2014 | Leave a comment | Filed in Government, Prescription Drugs & Prevention

A bipartisan group of senators has formed to fight prescription drug abuse, according to The Hill. The group will look for innovative solutions to opioid abuse.

The Prescription Drug Abuse Working Group, part of the Senate Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, will convene a series of meetings about prescription drug abuse, involving local, state and federal officials, private coalitions, and companies developing novel technologies for combating abuse. The group will focus on hydrocodone, oxycodone and other narcotics that can be easily abused, according to HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin of Iowa.

Committee Ranking Member Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has been an outspoken critic of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the pure hydrocodone drug Zohydro. In February, he and two other Republican senators wrote to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to protest the agency’s decision to approve the drug. They wrote, “We believe the approval of pure hydrocodone products without methods to prevent abuse, misuse, and diversion, including abuse-deterrent formulations, poses a significant danger to our constituents, as it could worsen the drug abuse epidemic in our country.”

In a news release announcing the new Senate working group, Alexander said, “Not a day goes by that we don’t hear news of how prescription drug abuse is harming Americans across the nation, including in Tennessee. We are launching this working group to look at the problem from all angles—particularly what the federal government is doing to enable the mayors, governors, and law enforcement and public health officials who are working hard to address the problem.”