Free Republic

As authorities clamp down on fentanyl distribution and the amount of heroin produced in Afghanistan decreases under the Taliban, criminal enterprises have turned to a deadly alternative. Some health agencies in Europe are reporting a rise in deaths and overdoses from a type of synthetic opioid that can reportedly be hundreds of times stronger than heroin and up to forty times stronger than fentanyl. 2-Benzyl Benzimidazole opioids, commonly known as nitazines, are a class of synthetic compound developed in the 1950s as painkillers, but which were never approved for use as medicines. Because of their potency, compared with natural opioids...

Top House Homeland Security Committee Democrat Bennie Thompson (D-MS) used a hearing on the border crisis to instead call for the impeachment of Donald Trump. In the kickoff hearing in impeachment proceedings for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Thompson, who chaired Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) Select Committee on January 6, did not mention the words “border,” “cartel,” or “opioid” during his questioning of witnesses. Instead, he only addressed the Democrat witness, law professor Frank Bowman, while making the case for Trump’s impeachment. He failed to use the full time allotted to him, time which could have been used to ask...

Office of Public Affairs The Justice Department announced today that Allegheny County, Pennsylvania has agreed to offer treatment with any Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medication for opioid use disorder (OUD) to all individuals booked into the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ) for whom such treatment is medically appropriate. Allegheny County will also pay $10,000 to an individual allegedly denied access to methadone in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA prohibits state and local governments from discriminating against individuals with disabilities and protects people in recovery from OUD, including individuals who are taking OUD medication at the...

From one end of the country to the other, officials are tracking yet another nitazene analogue that has caused at least 20 overdose deaths to date. Recently acquired in vitro pharmacological data shows this emergent novel synthetic opioid—called N-pyrrolidino protonitazene (also protonitazepyne)—is 25x more potent than fentanyl. Nitazene analogues are a novel class of synthetic opioids that can be up to 40 times more potent than fentanyl and up to 500 times more potent than morphine. While they vary in potency, most retain opioid receptor activity. In January, for example, the Center for Forensic Science Research & Education (CFSRE), identified...

Walgreens will pay the city of San Francisco nearly $230 million, after a federal judge found the company liable for contributing to the city’s opioid epidemic. The settlement, which will be paid out over 14 years, will go towards addressing the city’s opioid crisis, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced on Wednesday. “Opioids have wreaked havoc across our nation leading to immense suffering and untold damage,” he said in a statement. “Cities like San Francisco have shouldered much of the burden of the opioid epidemic. “ “Following our win against Walgreens during the liability phase, this historic agreement ensures...

Florida’s Attorney General, Republican Ashley Moody, is calling on her state to add a frightening new “Frankenstein” opioid that is reportedly 40 times more potent than fentanyl to the list of Schedule 1 controlled substances, a designation that stipulates the drug has no acceptable medical use and carries a high risk for abuse. Other drugs to receive that classification include heroin, ecstasy, and peyote, among others. Officially known as “nitazene compounds,” Moody warns “one pill will kill,” and it’s already spreading across America. “For years, I have been warning about how just one pill laced with fentanyl can kill, but...

On January 18, 2023, the United States filed its Complaint and proposed Consent Decree to resolve allegations that Cumberland County, Tennessee violated Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act by denying a corrections officer a reasonable accommodation and constructively discharging him based on his disability of opioid use disorder. In addition, the County implemented a policy that prevents people who are taking legally prescribed controlled substances or certain medications from having those substances or medications present in their system while at work for the County, thus prohibiting working for the County while taking such medications. Under the Consent Decree,...

Patients can recover from orthopedic surgery just as well without using opioid-based painkillers. Study results showed that by prescribing a combination of three non-opioid painkillers to patients, researchers successfully reduced approximately tenfold the amounts of opioids consumed over a six-week post-operative period, without altering their pain levels. Co-principal investigator Olufemi Ayeni and his team gleaned their results by enrolling 193 patients between March 2021 and March 2022. The patients were randomly assigned to either a control group of 98 receiving standard opioid-based painkillers or an opioid-free group (93) receiving a combination therapy of naproxen, acetaminophen and pantoprazole and a patient...

It's estimated that more than 107,000 people in the United States died due to opioid overdoses in 2021. Washington Post journalist Scott Higham notes it's "the equivalent of a 737 Boeing crashing and burning and killing everybody on board every single day." In the new book, American Cartel, Higham and co-author Sari Horwitz make the case that the pharmaceutical industry operated like a drug cartel, with manufacturers at the top; wholesalers in the middle; and pharmacies at the level of "street dealers." What's more, Higham says, the companies collaborated with each other — and with lawyers and lobbyists — to...

Aromatherapy reduces post-surgical opioid use by half in hip replacement patients anxious before their operation, according to a new study. Previous research has shown that anxiety, depression and catastrophising (patients who believe they are going to die during surgery) increase post-operative pain and opioid use by up to 50%. Aromatherapy, the use of essential oils to enhance well-being, has been used for thousands of years and a number of recent studies have found that lavender and peppermint aromatherapy, in particular, can reduce anxiety. This study is one of the first to employ a randomized, placebo-controlled design to look at whether...

The large-scale drug trafficking operation of an infamous cartel just got busted in a mountain state some 1,400 miles from its Mexican headquarters and only one U.S. official, a local prosecutor, has dared to acknowledge the obvious; “This poison is coming over from our southern border unchecked,” said the elected prosecutor of Colorado’s largest district. “It will not stop coming over the border from Mexico into our communities until the federal government takes that porous border seriously.” His name is John Kellner, district attorney in the state’s 18th Judicial District which serves a population of about 1.3 million and covers...

When Martin Njoku saw opioid addiction devastate his West Virginia community, he felt compelled to help. This was the place he'd called home for three decades, where he'd raised his two girls and turned his dream of owning a pharmacy into reality. In 2016, after flooding displaced people in nearby counties, Njoku began dispensing buprenorphine to them and to local customers at his Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy in Fayette County. WBUR is a nonprofit news organization and our coverage relies on your financial support. Please give today. Buprenorphine, a controlled substance sold under the brand names Subutex and Suboxone, is...

Drug overdose deaths rose by close to 30% in the United States in 2020, hitting the highest number ever recorded, according to a report the CDC issued in July 2021. The data indicates more than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2020—a 29% increase from the 72,151 deaths projected for 2019. While it’s still early in the process, scientists at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons have now taken a step toward turning those numbers around. A team at the university is leading a Phase 1a/1b clinical trial for an experimental vaccine for treatment of opioid use...

Thailand has decriminalized the possession and sale of kratom, a plant that's native to Southeast Asia whose leaves are used as a mild stimulant and painkillerThailand on Tuesday decriminalized the possession and sale of kratom, a plant native to Southeast Asia whose leaves are used as a mild stimulant and painkiller and which has a following in the United States for its pain-relieving qualities. Justice Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said thousands of legal cases for the possession or sale of kratom were being dropped, and 121 inmates convicted in such cases would be released immediately. Possession of kratom had been punishable...

the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border is worsening. A dozen Texas counties, many of them not directly situated on the border, have declared emergencies due to the explosive increase in human trafficking that the open border is facilitating. ... the open border is facilitating an additional outbreak of lawlessness. The opioid fentanyl is now flooding across the border. ... The open border has created a massive economic boom for the cartels, which were already far better funded than Mexico’s police and military combined. Fentanyl is one of the primary drugs flooding across the border. The majority of fentanyl and its...

A consulting firm with ties to communist China is set to pay Nevada $45 million after it spread propaganda that contributed to the state’s opioid crisis.The state’s Democrat Attorney General Aaron Ford announced the settlement with McKinsey & Company on Monday, just one month he “opted out” of another settlement worth $573 million with 47 states and Washington D.C. over the opioid propaganda which would have left Nevada with a “woefully insufficient” $7 million.“Nevada is a hardest-hit state by the opioid crisis and is owed a great deal of compensation and justice,” Ford said in a press release, noting that...

...The American Medical Association said it was “greatly concerned” at reported increases in opioid overdoses in more than 30 states although it will be months before hard data is available. Public health officials from Kentucky to Florida, Texas and Colorado have recorded surges in opioid deaths as the economic and social anxieties created by the Covid-19 pandemic prove fertile ground for addiction. In addition, Brumage said significant numbers of people have fallen out of treatment programmes as support networks have been yanked away by social distancing orders. “I’m a firm adherent to the idea that the opposite of addiction is...

Officials with the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office in southwest Louisiana issued the warning last week after making arrests in connection to the new drug. It's called gray death and is a lethal combination of "some of the most deadly opioids including heroin, fentanyl and various fentanyl analogues," officials said on Facebook. According to the Sheriff's Office, the new super drug began to surface in the South, first in Alabama and Georgia. Investigators said a "minuscule amount of this drug" can kill. Sheriff's Office investigators released photos of what gray death looks like after suspects were taken into custody with...

In the midst of an opioid epidemic in the United States, the government has blown tens of millions of dollars to treat drug addiction in Afghanistan and has no clue if the programs are working. Since 2002 American taxpayers have doled out an eye-popping $9 billion to counter drug production in the Islamic nation, the world’s top opium producer. The money largely flows through the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). As part of the broader effort, Uncle Sam spent $50.5 million on dozens of drug treatment programs between 2013 and 2018. The treatment projects...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — First lady Melania Trump visited West Virginia on Monday to learn how a city at the center of the nation’s opioid epidemic is grappling with the crisis. She met with federal, state and local officials in Huntington and heard how the area’s police, schools and health care centers are trying to fight the opioid scourge. “I am here to give you my support,” Trump told participants in the roundtable discussion. West Virginia has the country’s highest fatal opioid overdose rate and has struggled, like many other states, to confront the many aspects of the problem. Huntington...