Drug War Chronicle, Issue #528 -- 3/21/08
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/psmith
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528
A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director,
http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"
Three New Book Premiums for Our Members:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/three_new_book_offers_for_our_members
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Table of Contents:
1. DRUG OVERDOSES DEATHS ARE GOING THROUGH THE ROOF -- IS
ANYBODY WATCHING?
While the nation worries about baseball players on steroids and
teenagers smoking pot, an epidemic of drug overdoses is sweeping
the country. There are methods of reducing the toll, but there
are many obstacles, too, not the least of which is public and
official indifference.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/overdose_deaths_increasing
2. STATES ****FTING TO "FOUR PILLARS" APPROACH, INSTEAD OF MASS
ARRESTS AND SCARE TACTICS, FOR CONFRONTING METHAMPHETAMINE
Current approaches to methamphetamine use in the US have largely
failed and should be replaced by a "Four Pillars" approach
embracing prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law
enforcement, according to a re****t issued Tuesday. Some states
have already moved that direction.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/four_pillars_meth_drug_policy_alliance_re****t
3. DRUG WAR CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW: "OVER THE INFLUENCE: THE HARM
REDUCTION GUIDE TO MANAGING DRUGS AND ALCOHOL," BY PATT DENNING,
JEANNE LITTLE, AND ADINA GLICKMAN (2004, GUILFORD PRESS, 328
PP., $16.95 PB)
We usually reserve this space for books hot off the press, but
in the case of "Over the Influence," we make an exception. This
book is special enough for us to make it a premium for our
contributors, and given that we are publi****ng a story this week
about the rapidly rise toll from drug overdoses, we think its
im****tance is self-evident.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/book_review_over_the_influence_denning_little_glickman
4. APPEAL: THREE EXCITING NEW BOOK OFFERS FOR OUR DONATING
SUP****TERS
We are pleased to offer the works "Over the Influence: The Harm
Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol," "Women Behind
Bars: The Crisis of Women in the US Prison System," and
"Cannabis: Yields and Dosage," as our latest member****p premium
gifts.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/three_new_book_offers_for_our_members
5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
Greedy jail guards, pill-peddling cops, sticky-fingered cops,
and a sticky-fingered prosecutor. On the corrupt cop front, it's
the same old same old. Here's this week's version.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/police_drug_corruption
6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: OHIO SWAT OFFICER WHO KILLED YOUNG MOTHER IN
DRUG RAID GETS CHARGED WITH MISDEMEANORS, FACES EIGHT MONTHS AT
MOST
The black community in Lima, Ohio, cried for justice after a
SWAT team member killed Tarika Wilson and wounded her infant son
during a raid in January. Those cries are unlikely to be quieted
now as local authorities charged the police shooter with a pair
of misdemeanors for the killing. He faces a maximum of eight
months in jail.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/lima_swat_shooter_charged_two_misdemeanors_tarika_wilson
7. LAW ENFORCEMENT: SENATE VOTES TO RESTORE BYRNE DRUG TASK
FORCE FUNDING PROGRAM
Although the Bush administration has tried repeatedly to zero
out funding for the Justice Department grant program that funds
state and local anti-drug task forces, Congress keeps trying to
put it back. Last week, the Senate voted to restore more than
$900 million in funds in the FY 2009 budget, but there's a long
way to go yet.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/senate_vote_restore_byrne_jag_grant_funds
8. MARIJUANA: NEW HAMP****RE HOUSE P***** DECRIMINALIZATION BILL
The New Hamp****re House Tuesday approved a bill that would
decriminalize the possession of up to a quarter ounce of
marijuana. But Senate leaders say it is dead on arrival, and the
governor is vowing to veto it if it p*****.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/new_hamp****re_house_p*****_marijuana_decriminalization_bill
9. DRUG TESTING: WA****NGTON STATE SUPREME COURT REJECTS RANDOM
TESTS OF STUDENTS
The drug czar's office may be pu****ng the random drug testing of
high school students, but it isn't going to happen in Wa****ngton
state. The state Supreme Court last week ruled such testing
unconstitutional.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/wa****ngton_state_supreme_court_rejects_school_drug_test
10. EUROPE: CZECHS TO DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA POSSESSION,
GROWING UP TO THREE PLANTS
The Czech Republic is set to decriminalize the possession of up
to 20 joints and the growing of up three marijuana plants. The
move comes as an adjustment to the penal code.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/czech_republic_decriminalizes_marijuana
11. LATIN AMERICA: FIRST COCA PLANTATIONS, COCAINE LAB FOUND IN
BRAZIL
For the first time, Brazilian authorities have found coca
plantations and a cocaine lab on national territory, and they
are worried there could be more.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/brazil_first_coca_plantation_cocaine_lab_found
12. WEEKLY: BLOGGING @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
THE SPEAKEASY
"They're Producing Cocaine in Brazil Now, Too," "DEA Opens Drug
War Fantasy Camp," "Mark Souder Accidentally Assists Marijuana
Decrim Efforts in New Hamp****re," "UN Drug Czar Refuses to
Answer a Tough Question," "Internet Users Take a Swing at
Anti-drug PSAs," "High School Drug Policy: Striving for
Underachievement."
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/blogging_at_the_speakeasy
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/drug_war_history
14. JOB LISTING: INTERN****P OP****TUNITIES AT THE MARIJUANA
POLICY PROJECT
The Marijuana Policy Project is looking for summer interns to
work in its Outreach and State Policies departments.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/mpp_intern****ps_wa****ngton
15. STUDENTS: INTERN AT DRCNET AND HELP STOP THE DRUG WAR!
Apply for an intern****p at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and
you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/drcnet_intern****ps_to_stop_the_drug_war
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A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War
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http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available
19. RESOURCE: REFORMER'S CALENDAR ACCESSIBLE THROUGH DRCNET WEB
SITE
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to
the events coming up the soonest, and more.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/drug_reform_calendar
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================
1. Drug Overdoses Deaths Are Going Through the Roof -- Is
Anybody Watching?
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/528/overdose_deaths_increasing
According to a little noticed January re****t
(http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_10.pdf)
from
the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), drug overdoses killed
more than 33,000 people in 2005, the last year for which firm
data are available. That makes drug overdose the second leading
cause of accidental death, behind only motor vehicle accidents
(43,667) and ahead of firearms deaths (30,694).
What's more disturbing is that the 2005 figures are only the
latest in such a seemingly inexorable increase in overdose
deaths that the eras of the 1970s heroin epidemic and the 1980s
crack wave pale in comparison. According to the CDC, some 10,000
died of overdoses in 1990; by 1999, that number had hit 20,000;
and in the six years between then and 2005, it increased by more
than 60%.
"The death toll is equivalent to a hundred 757s cra****ng and
killing everybody on board every year, but this doesn't make the
news," said Dan Bigg of the Chicago Recovery Alliance
(http://www.anypositivechange.org),
a harm reduction
organization providing needle exchange and other services to
drug users. "So many people have died, and we just don't care."
Fortunately, some people care. Harm reductionists like Bigg,
some public health officials, and a handful of epidemiologists,
including those at the CDC, have been watching the up-trend with
increasing concern, and some drug policy reform organizations
are devoting some energy to measures that could bring those
numbers down.
But as youth sociologist and long-time critic of the drug policy
establishment's overweening fascination with teen drug use Mike
Males noted back in February
(http://www.youthfacts.org/drug2005.html),
the official and
press response to the CDC re****t has been "utter silence."
That's because the wrong people are dying, Males argued:
"Erupting drug abuse centered in middle-aged America is killing
tens of thousands and hospitalizing hundreds of thousands every
year, destroying families and communities, subjecting hundreds
of thousands of children to abuse and neglect and packing foster
care systems to unmanageable peaks, fostering gun violence among
inner-city drug dealers, inciting an epidemic of middle-aged
crime and imprisonment costing Americans tens of billions of
dollars annually, and now creating a spin-off drug abuse
epidemic among teens and young adults. Yet, because today's drug
epidemic is mainly white middle-aged adults -- a powerful
population that is "not supposed to abuse drugs" -- the media
and officials can't talk about it. The rigid media and official
rule: Drugs can ONLY be discussed as crises of youth and
minorities."
The numbers are there to back up Males' point. Not only are
Americans dying of drug overdoses in numbers never seen before,
it is the middle-aged -- not the young -- who are doing most of
the dying. And they are not, for the most part, overdosing on
heroin or cocaine, but on Oxycontin, Lorcet, and other opioids
created for pain control but often diverted into the lucrative
black market created by prohibition.
Back in October, CDC epidemiologist Leonard Paulozzi gave
Congress a foretaste of what the January re****t held. Drug death
"rates are currently more than twice what they were during the
peak years of crack cocaine mortality in the early 1990s, and
four to five times higher than the rates during the year of
heroin mortality peak in 1975," he said in testimony
(http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2007/10/t20071024a.html)
before
the House Oversight and Investigations Committee.
"Mortality statistics suggest that these deaths are largely due
to the misuse and abuse of prescription drugs," Paulozzi
continued. "Such statistics are backed up by studies of the
records of state medical examiners. Such studies consistently
re****t that a high percentage of people who die of prescription
drug overdoses have a history of substance abuse."
But there is more to it than a mere correlation between
increases in the prescribing and abuse of opioid pain relievers
and a rising death rate, said Dr. Alex Krall, director of the
Urban Health Program for RTI International (http://www.rti.org),
a large nonprofit health organization. Krall, who has been doing
epidemiological research on opioid overdoses for 15 years, said
there are a variety of factors at work.
"There hasn't been a big increase in heroin use," he said.
"What's changed has been prescription opiate drug use. Oxycontin
is probably a big part of the answer. The pharmaceutical
companies have come up with good and highly useful versions of
opioids, but they have also been diverted and used in illicit
ways in epidemic fa****on for the past 15 years."
But Krall also pointed the finger at the resort to mass
imprisonment and forced treatment of drug offenders as a
contributing factor. "What happens is that people who are opiate
users go into prison or jail and they get off the drug, but when
they come out and start using again, they use at the same levels
as before, and they don't have the same kind of tolerance. We
know that recent release from jail or prison is a big risk
factor for overdose," he said.
"The last piece of the puzzle is drug treatment," Krall said.
"Besides the tolerance problems for people who have been
abstaining in treatment, there has been an increase in the use
of methadone and buprenorphine, which is a good thing, but
people are managing to overdose on those as well."
There are means of reducing the death toll, said a variety of
harm reductionists, and the opioid antagonist naloxone (Narcan)
was mentioned by all of them. Naloxone is a big part of the
answer, said the Chicago Recovery Alliance's Bigg. "It's been
around for 40 years, it's a pure antidote, and it has no side
effects. It consistently reverses overdoses via intramuscular
injection; it's very simple to administer. If people have
naloxone, it becomes much, much easier to avoid overdose
deaths."
"Naloxone should be made available over the counter without a
prescription," said Bigg. "In the meantime, every time a
physician prescribes opioids, he should also prescribe
naloxone."
"For a couple of years now, we've been talking about trying to
get naloxone reclassified so it's available over the counter or
maybe prescribed by a pharmacist," said Hilary McQuie, Western
director for the Harm Reduction Coalition
(http://www.harmreduction.org).
"The problem is that you don't
just need congressional activity, you also need to deal with the
FDA process, and it's hard to find anyone in the activist
community who understands that process."
Harm reductionists also have to grapple with the changing face
of drug overdoses. "We're used to dealing with injection drug
users," McQuie admitted, "and nobody really has a good
initiative for dealing with prescription drug users. In our
lobbying meetings about the federal needle exchange funding ban,
we've started to talk about this, specifically about getting
naloxone out there."
But while the overdose epidemic weighs heavily on the movement,
no one wants to spend money to bring the numbers down. "This is
a very big issue, it's very present for harm reduction workers,"
said McQuie. "But we haven't done a lot of press on it because
there is no funding for overdose prevention. We have a very good
program in San Francisco to train residential hotel managers and
drug users at needle exchanges. It's very cheap; it only cost
$70,000, including naloxone. But we can't get funders
interested in this. We write grants to do this sort of work
around the state, and we never get any money."
Perversely, the Office of National Drug Control Policy also
opposes making naloxone widely available -- on the grounds that
it is a moral hazard. "First of all, I don't agree with giving
an opioid antidote to non-medical professionals. That's No. 1,"
ONDCP's Deputy Director of Demand Reduction said in January. "I
just don't think that's good public health policy."
But even worse, Madras argued that availability of naloxone
could encourage drug users to keep using because they would be
less afraid of overdoses. And besides, Madras, continued,
overdosing may be just what the doctor ordered for drug users.
"Sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room,
having that contact with a health care professional is enough to
make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap
into having someone give them services," Madras said.
"The drug czar's office argues that if you take away the
potential consequences, in this case, a fatal overdose, you
facilitate the use, but betting someone's life on that is just
cruel and bizarre," snorted Bigg.
RTI's Kraal noted that there are now 44 naloxone programs run by
community groups across the country. "It would be wonderful if
there were more of them, because they are staving off a lot of
deaths, but they are controversial. The ONDCP says they condone
drug use, but you can't rehabilitate a dead drug user."
While battles over naloxone access continue, said Bigg, there
are other things that can be done. "We need to engage people,
and that means overcoming shame," said Bigg. "Every couple of
months, I get a call from a family that has lost a member to
drugs and I ask them if they're willing to come forward and talk
to re****ters to stop it from happening again, and they say 'let
me think about it,' and I never hear from them again.
Another means of reducing the death toll would be to start local
organizations of people whose friends or family members have
died or are still using and at risk. "We could call them 'First
Things First,' as in first, let's keep our folks alive," he
suggested.
"When people found out naloxone is out there, that it's this
medicine that has no ill effects -- it has no effect at all
unless you're using opioids -- and that it can't be abused, and
that their family member could have had it and still be alive,
that's a hard thing to realize," said Bigg. "Everyone who has
lost a loved one wants him back, and to think he could still be
alive today if there were naloxone is a bitter, bitter pill to
swallow."
Despite the apparent low profile of drug policy reform groups,
they, too, have been fighting on the overdose front. "We worked
to pass groundbreaking overdose prevention bills in California
and New Mexico," said Bill Piper, national affairs director for
the Drug Policy Alliance (http://www.drugpolicy.org).
"We're
working to advance overdose prevention bills in Maryland and New
Jersey. We had a bill in 2006 in Congress that would have
created a federal grant program for overdose prevention," he
said, pointedly adding that not a single federal dollar goes to
overdose prevention. "We've tried to introduce that in the new
Congress but can't find someone to take a lead. To be frank, few
politicians care about this issue. Their staff care even less."
A massive public education campaign is needed, said Piper,
adding that DPA is working on a re****t on this very topic that
should appear in a few weeks.
In the meantime, while politicians and drug war bureaucrats
avert their gaze and deep-pocketed potential donors keep their
purses tightly closed, while the nation worries about baseball
players on steroids and teenagers smoking pot, the bodies pile
up like cordwood.
================
later
bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)
--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco
"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.
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