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Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in nonmedical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl. Physicians like me have seen a rise in unintentional fentanyl use from people buying prescription opioids and other drugs laced, or adulterated, with fentanyl. Heroin users in my community in Massachusetts came to realize that fentanyl had entered the drug supply when overdose numbers exploded. In 2016, my colleagues and I found that patients who came to the emergency department reporting a heroin overdose often only had fentanyl present in their...

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may help people being treated for opioid addiction reduce their methadone dose and better manage pain and withdrawal symptoms. The research team recruited participants enrolled in a local opioid treatment program to test the effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a treatment that involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized environment. The first paper showed that those who had received hyperbaric oxygen therapy as part of a planned methadone taper were able to maintain a significantly larger dose reduction of 4.3 mg three months after the study, as compared to 0.25 mg in participants who did not receive...

Messy tents line the streets. Bottles, plastic bags, and all kinds of trash fly in the breeze. People with shabby clothes wander and sit. It is Boston’s “Methadone Mile,” an area that is only a few miles away from the city’s downtown and Financial District.The epicenter of Boston’s opioid crisis and homelessness earned its nickname due to the concentration of service providers, who usually incorporate methadone into treatments of drug addiction. For years, the area has attracted a large number of homeless and addicted people, especially after the closure of Boston’s Long Island treatment facility in 2014.Shelter and service shutdowns...

A new study conducted in rats shows that animals ignore social contact in favor of highly addictive opioid drugs. Researchers went on to show that this drug-seeking behavior could be reversed by stimulating a region of the brain. Researchers in the Arizona State University Department of Psychology previously used an animal model of opioid addiction and empathy to show that animals stopped prosocial behaviors - helping another animal - when heroin was available. The same research group has now shown that activating the anterior insula restored prosocial behaviors in opioid-addicted animals. The study will be published in Social Neuroscience and...

San Francisco’s mayor plans to put medical teams on the streets to distribute a drug that curbs heroin cravings in opioid addicts, an initiative he says will be the first in the country. Mayor Mark Farrell announced Thursday he will allocate $6 million for 10 new public health clinicians to provide the opioid treatment medicine buprenorphine, known as Suboxone, directly to users. Buprenorphine is a daily pill or dissolvable strip that reduces cravings and alleviates withdrawal symptoms. It also reduces risk of overdose. Video and photos of people shooting up drugs in public have gone viral in recent weeks and...

Jessica Falkholt continues to cling to life in hospital more than a day after her life support was turned off following a horrific car crash on the NSW south coast. The Home and Away actor and her younger sister Annabelle were pulled from the fiery wreckage of their car near Ulladulla on Boxing Day but her parents Lars and Vivian died at the scene. Annabelle, 21, died from her injuries three days after the head-on crash and Jessica has been in a critical condition in St George Hospital. The hospital on Friday confirmed her life support had been switched off....

SNIPPET: "Today the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced the arrest of two Canadian-born citizens, John Stuart Nuttall and Amanda Marie Korody, in a terror plot targeting a public gathering at the British Columbia Legislature in Victoria on Canada Day, July 1. According to online court records, Nuttall and Korody appeared at the Surrey Provincial Court this morning. The two suspects face charges that include "conspiring to place an explosive in or against a place of public use, a government or public facility, with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, for the benefit of, at the direction...

NEW YORK – A six-year-old Bronx boy died after his father gave him methadone, believing the liquid was cough medicine. The boy's mother, 36-year-old Raquel DeLeon, hid her methadone inside a DayQuil bottle in their apartment on East 147th Street in the south Bronx. On Saturday, when Carlos Rios Jr. fell ill, his father gave him a teaspoon of the liquid, believing it was cough medicine, police said. Soon after taking the dose, the boy complained of dizziness. His father told him to lie down, but grew concerned after his son became unresponsive. The father immediately called 911 and medics...

Three tribes lead the best practice initiative treating the epidemic of painkiller addiction in Native America, Oklahoma, the nation's leader in painkiller addiction. Treating all adults, Medicaid. Last month the Center for Disease Control called prescription painkiller addiction an epidemic in the country, identifying Oklahoma as leading the nation in both the addiction and related deaths. It is only fitting that the battle against such addiction in "Native America" be led by three tribal owned clinics, Absentee Shawnee Counseling Services, OKC; Keetoowah Cherokee Treatment Services, Tulsa; and Quapaw Counseling Services, Miami. Generally speaking, prescription painkillers are opiates. There are 14...

To cut costs, Washington steers Medicaid patients to a narcotic painkiller that costs less than a dollar a dose. The state insists methadone is safe. But hundreds die each year — and more than anyone else, the poor pay the price. ... Methadone belongs to a class of narcotic painkillers, called opioids, that includes OxyContin, fentanyl and morphine. Within that group, methadone accounts for less than 10 percent of the drugs prescribed — but more than half of the deaths... Methadone works wonders for some patients, relieving chronic pain from throbbing backs to inflamed joints. But the drug's unique properties...

Quapaw Counseling Services, of Oklahoma City, has been sold to the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma's economic development authority. The clinic is now called Absentee Shawnee Counseling Services. FROM STAFF REPORTS Oklahoman Comment on this article 1 Published: October 11, 2011 An Oklahoma City clinic specializing in methamphetamine and opiate addictions has been sold to the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma's economic development authority. More Info TO LEARN MORE For more information, go to http://qcs-okc.com. Advertisement Quapaw Counseling Services, 1301 SE 59 St., is now known as Absentee Shawnee Counseling Services. The grand opening ceremony is from 2 to 4...

Just when you thought the campaigns coming out of George Soros’ Open Society Institute couldn’t push the envelope any further, the Soros backed institute topped itself. OSI reportedly just released a new comic book titled Methadone Man and Buprenorphine Babe — which encourages drug addicts to use Methadone and Buprenorphine to combat heroin and other opioid drug withdrawals and even to fight HIV.

We are facing a tsunami of painkiller addiction that will flood our criminal justice, health care, behavioral health, and social services resources. Illicit online pharmacies have made prescriptions cheap and easy to acquire, fueling a massive wave of addi...ction that we actually have not seen yet. SAMHSA estimates that over 5% of the nations population, 12 years and older, are using painkillers, nowhere more prevalent than the heartland with Oklahoma leading the nation at 6.7%. Opioid addiction used to be thought of as primarily heroin addiction, but that is changing rapidly. The masses currently addicted to prescription painkillers have conveniently...

Not all Opioid Treatment Programs (OTP) are the same. Compare OTPs to the following list before making a selection: ð A SAMHSA accredited and certified, CARF accredited OTP. ð An evidenced-based, best practice Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) OTP, using SAMHSA Treatment Improvement Protocol 43 as its model. ð A MAT that emphasizes treatment of the underlying addiction requiring multiple therapeutic contacts per week, using a bio-psych-social approach toward recovery. ð A MAT that is not a just a "maintenance" program but uses medication as a tool to get the opioid addict past a critical stage in recovery toward better outcomes....

We are facing a tsunami of painkiller addiction that will flood our criminal justice, health care, behavioral health, and social services resources. Illicit online pharmacies have made prescriptions cheap and easy to acquire, fueling a massive wave of addiction that we actually have not seen yet. SAMHSA estimates that over 5% of the nations population, 12 years and older, are using painkillers, nowhere more prevalent than the heartland with Oklahoma leading the nation at 6.7%. Opioid addiction used to be thought of as primarily heroin addiction, but that is changing rapidly. The masses currently addicted to prescription painkillers have conveniently...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A 30-year-old woman is charged with aggravated manslaughter after a 2-year-old boy died after coming in contact with methadone she admitted leaving in a child's plastic drinking cup, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.The boy's father, Ernest Wright, said he was in school when it happened and he came to his home on Alta Drive on Nov. 15 to find his son unconscious.He took the boy to a hospital, where the boy was pronounced dead on arrival.The autopsy revealed Masia Wright died from methadone toxicity and the medical examiner ruled the case a homicide.

Note: The following text is a quote: Superseding Indictment Returned Charging Members of the Krazy Locos Criminal Street Gang with Two Homicides, Robbery, Firearms, and Narcotics Charges Jeffrey H. Sloman, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Michael F. McAuliffe, Palm Beach County State Attorney, John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, Hugo Barrera, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Anthony V. Mangione, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Office of Investigations, and Ric L. Bradshaw, Sheriff, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office,...

He said: "My doctor told me those mysterious new pills were methadone, which is used to wean heroin addicts off dope. Had I known it was methadone, I probably wouldn't have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can't even say 100 per cent for sure. “My doctor told me the amount of methadone I'd taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin. Even when they told me I almost died, it didn't click." The 36-year-old hip-hop star admits his substance abuse addiction had spiralled out of control by then. He added to Vibe...

Patients and addicts are mixing the opiate with other drugs, as did Anna Nicole Smith's son ...Well before these deaths, however, drug counselors and clinicians were concerned about increased abuse of the drug on the streets, in group homes and even in middle schools. It is an ironic turn in the history of methadone, which for years has been used to treat heroin addiction. A synthetic opiate, methadone is similar to heroin in chemistry, curbing a user's craving for the illegal opiate by blocking the sensors that heroin stimulates without producing a heroin high. In recent years, methadone has proved...

Pathologist Says Meds Killed Smith's Son LOS ANGELES (Sept. 27) - Actress and model Anna Nicole Smith's son, Daniel Smith, died of a lethal combination of drugs that caused an irregular heart beat, People Magazine reported on its Web site on Wednesday. The report quoted pathologist Cyril Wecht, who was hired by Smith to look into her son's September 10 death, as saying Daniel Smith died from a combination of methadone, Zoloft and Lexapro that led to cardiac dysrhythmia. People Magazine said Wecht got the results of toxicology tests from National Medical Services in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Daniel Smith, 20,...