Group forms to fight against legalizing marijuana

By Megan Hoffman | September 2018

A new group is forming to fight against recreational marijuana becoming legal in the state. The coalition was announced Thursday, and is made up of several state groups including Greater North Dakota Chamber and law enforcement, as well as the national Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a non-profit.

Measure 3 on this fall\’s ballot will give North Dakotans a chance to vote on legalizing marijuana. But Luke Niforatos with Smart Approaches to Marijuana is part of a new group aimed at making sure the initiative fails.

“You have nothing to lose by pumping the breaks right now and waiting until we learn a little bit more about marijuana legalization from the states that have legalized,” Niforatos said. “You have everything to lose if you\’re wrong.”

The coalition, named, North Dakotans Against The Legalization Of Recreational Marijuana, will be out campaigning and spreading their message over the next several months. They will be working in opposition to Legalize ND, the group leading the fight for the passage of measure 3.

“Our support has always been very solid at the grassroots level and at the door to door level,” Dave Owen with Legalize ND said

For complete story http://www.kfyrtv.com/content/news/Group-forms-to-fight-against-legalizing-marijuana-492739501.html

By Dr Bertha K. Madras1

The United States has the ignominious distinction of leading the world in opioid prescribing,1 and in opioid-related overdose deaths. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that over 40,000 people died of an opioid-related overdose, with fentanyl-related deaths exceeding those of heroin or prescription opioids.2  Opioid overdoses are now the leading cause of unintentional deaths in the US and of declining lifespan expectancies. 3 With a worsening crisis, agencies of the US government and others produced an array of reports on the opioid crisis. Yet the death rate escalated further from 2010 to the present.

For Full Briefing COMBATING OPIOID CRISIS

The President\’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis – Origins and Recommendations2018

Slides based on 2017 NSDUH Annual National Report – Trends Only

https://www.samhsa.gov/data/report/2017-nsduh-detailed-tables

Drugs treatment training? No, a love-in for legalisers

By  Neil McKeganey August 22, 2018

A conference which is widely attended by drug treatment staff in England and Wales is fast becoming an exercise in drug legalisation propaganda. The annual National Substance Misuse Conference attracts a large number of general practitioners and other health care staff to hear the latest in drug treatment policy and practice. The conference is widely promoted by a range of respected public health bodies including Substance Misuse Management in General Practice, Addaction, a leading drug treatment agency, and Collective Voice which represents many of those working in the drugs treatment field and those in contact with drug treatment services. Delegates can claim continuing professional development credit. This is a serious conference, on a serious theme, for serious people.

Ths year’s conference, to be held in Birmingham on September 13, will be opened by representatives from Release, a drugs charity which has long campaigned for the legalisation of illegal drugs within the UK. Following the welcome, delegates will hear from Professor Alex Stevens, a criminologist from the University of Kent who has similarly widely advocated drugs policy change and legalisation. Hot on the heels of Professor Stevens, representatives of the Transform organisation, the UK’s leading drugs legalisation lobby group, will take the stage. Those who miss Transform can opt instead to hear David Jamieson, West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, who has advocated the wider prescribing of heroin to addicts in England, the setting up of drug consumption rooms and for drug use to be treated as a health rather than a criminal justice matter.

For more https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/drugs-discussion-no-a-love-in-for-legalisers/

#RECOVERY MONTH

Damning study shows Seattle’s heroin injection advocates are dead wrong

BY JASON RANTZ AUGUST 28, 2018

We know heroin injection sites don’t treat heroin addiction, which is precisely why advocates never point to data suggesting they get addicts off the drug that is ruining their lives before, inevitably, killing them.

RELATED: Seattle considered mobile safe injection site

But Seattle advocates, in their quest to bring these sites to the area, love to claim their idea will save the lives of addicts by cutting down on needle sharing and diseases associated with that behavior.

Well, they’re wrong.

A damning new study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy suggests the talking points used by advocates like Seattle Councilmembers Teresa Mosqueda and Lorena Gonzalez aren’t based in reality.

It turns out, the studies that advocates used to promote heroin injection sites were deeply flawed. Per German Lopez (who once advocated for heroin injection sites) of Vox:

One of the problems the review found is that the research is seriously lacking in this area. Out of the dozens of studies on the topic they found, the researchers concluded that only eight were rigorous and transparent enough to include in the review. With such a small pool of studies included, it’s possible – maybe even likely – that these few studies were in some ways biased, so future research could produce entirely different findings.

This was the first meta-analysis review on the topic.

Data doesn’t back up talking points

Of the 40 studies on the topic, the researchers booted the weak studies, such as those with data that couldn’t be replicated. It left them with eight meaningful studies to review.

They found, based on this data, that heroin injection sites “had no significant effect on most outcomes…” like “ambulance attendances relating to opioid-related events, overdose mortality … borrowing or sharing syringes and injecting equipment, and problematic heroin use or injection.”

“The contrast between the claims that are being made and what the evidence actually says are fairly disappointing,” according to Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert at Stanford University, to Vox. Humphreys will be on KTTH Radio’s Jason Rantz Show this Friday, Aug. 31.

That so few meaningful studies exist should come as no surprise. Advocates often look to Vancouver BC’s Insite, the heroin injection site Seattle is trying to model theirs after, claim there’s plenty of evidence to back up its effectiveness. But there isn’t. One study that made the claim is highly controversial because the people who conducted the study were the ones in charge of the program.

Local expert reacts (with great bias)

Speaking of bias, perhaps that is what’s leading to one local critic taking issue with this meta-analysis.

“That’s surprising,” Dr. Caleb Banta-Green, at the University of Washington, said of this new analysis to KIRO 7. “And then you dig into it and realize they’re doing a different type of study. And they’re looking at eight studies of four locations, even though there are more than 100 locations around the world.”

Indeed, that’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re doing it because the other studies provided subpar results to review. And this meta-analysis was solid, per Lopez:

The eight studies, though, were meant to be the best that the researchers could find. The studies that were excluded were those for which the researchers couldn’t get full data sets and which didn’t have comparison groups – fairly big methodological gaps.

This is typical in meta-analyses: The ideal is randomized controlled trials. But if none exist, researchers start looking at other kinds of studies, while maintaining some level of rigor, to tease out the evidence that is available.

And what the KIRO 7 piece inadvertently left out is that Banta-Green was part of the task force recommending that heroin injection sites be opened in King County. So this meta-analysis flies in the face of what he recommended.

And his message appears to be shifting, at least in part.

“It (safe injection sites) may not help with mortality rates,” Banta-Green admitted to KIRO 7. “I suspect it does, but it’s small.”

But in March of 2017, Banta-Green pushed this idea as saving lives to The Seattle Times: “I believe there is fundamental value in keeping people alive.”

Only, it’s not keeping people alive. And now, not only is there evidence to suggest it, Banta-Green is acknowledging it may not save lives. I’m not willing to ruin any more Seattle neighborhoods; I don’t want them becoming what the neighborhood hosting InSite has become. I’ve been there. It’s horrible.

Now, like I suspect is the case with Banta-Green, I have bias, too. I am against the heroin injection sites because I don’t think it’s ethical or moral to enable addicts to destroy their lives – even if it’s more slowly than they otherwise would be acting. I believe in treatment on-demand and free addiction services across the board.

The difference, however, is my bias is backed by actual data. This data isn’t the end-all, be-all. It simply shows the talking points Progressives are using are wrong. If you show me data suggesting heroin injection sites actually get people off of heroin, I’ll happily change my positions. The advocates, like Mosqueda and Gonzales? They have nothing but blind ideology on their side.

http://mynorthwest.com/1093100/seattle-heroin-injection-study/ (August 2018)

#RECOVERY MONTH

New Yorkers Who Use Drugs Report Changing Behaviors to Avoid Overdose

Study participants reported apprehension about the potency of fentanyl and the need to use drugs more cautiously in case they contain fentanyl. As a result, many people who use drugs reported using a variety of harm reduction strategies to prevent overdose, including test shots, buying drugs from a consistent source, reducing drug use, using fentanyl test strips, carrying naloxone (a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses), and using drugs in the presence of others.

The most common behavioral change reported was doing a test shot, or injecting a small amount of a drug to gauge its strength. A handful of people reported using test shots every time they injected, whereas others only used them if something about their drugs looked different or if they were warned that their heroin was new or potent.

Some participants reported using fentanyl test trips, a relatively new opioid overdose prevention approach, although the number of programs currently distributing fentanyl test strips is limited.

Some people reported using drugs in the company of others to prevent overdose, while others said they still preferred to use alone. Regardless, for most people who use drugs, their living situation often dictates where they use — for instance, whether they have stable housing, or are homeless and/or live in a shelter.

Experience with naloxone was widespread among people in the study. Over two-thirds reported carrying naloxone with them at least half of the time and several people reported being revived with it or using it on others. However, some people reported difficulty carrying naloxone due to judgment from others or homeless shelter policies that prohibit certain forms of naloxone.

“While nearly all study participants were knowledgeable about minimizing their risk for overdose and many reported using methods to reduce their risk, most were not consistent in applying these methods,” said CDUHR researcher Courtney McKnight, DrPH, clinical assistant professor at NYU College of Global Public Health and the study’s lead author. “Using methods to reduce the risk of overdose was often complicated by structural factors such as stigma, poverty, and homelessness, which were further complicated by dependence and the increased prevalence of fentanyl.”

For complete story https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2018/september/new-yorkers-who-use-drugs-report-changing-behaviors-to-avoid-ove.html

If the substance user/dependent/addict has ‘all the gear’ available to inject substances for free, and clearly the self-awareness to ‘change behaviour’ revealed in the study undertaken; and can clearly self-manage their self-mediating (and/or self-harming and/or recalcitrant hedonism activities) then a Supervised Injecting Room is not only redundant, but a costly means of intruding on a clearly unconcerned with recovery drug user?

So, why would anyone use an injecting room? Perhaps only really to try out very much ‘unknown’ drug cocktail, so they can then better sustain their ongoing drug use… oh, and all at tax-payers expense, of course. In appears ‘saving lives’ can be done a lot cheaper, if saving lives was the agenda behind the ever-growing raft of Harm Reduction ‘options’ for law-breaking and self-harming drug use!

Ah, but the evidence is overwhelming now, that it really isn’t (sadly) about the saving and recovering of lives, but rather the normalisation and State endorsement of ongoing drug use.

#RECOVERY MONTH

\’Deeply concerned\’: Marijuana legalization moving too fast for most Canadians, poll suggests

Six out of 10 Canadians think the Cannabis Act \’is just a big political move to get votes and nothing else,\’ and want legalization delayed for up to one year Iva Poshnjari June 28, 2018

The majority of Canadians want marijuana legalization delayed for up to one year to give federal and provincial governments more time to figure out how to deal with the societal implications, according to a new poll.

After the Cannabis Act passed its final vote in parliament last week, Justin Trudeau announced that marijuana will become legal on Oct. 17, giving provinces and territories just under four months to get ready. But 55 per cent of Canadians want legalization delayed, and 69 per cent are worried that the black market will continue to thrive because legal cannabis will cost more, according to a new Dart Insight poll conducted earlier this month.

In fact, six out of 10 Canadians think the Cannabis Act “is just a big political move to get votes and nothing else.” This sentiment is most common in Alberta (68 per cent) and Quebec (64 per cent), while 51 per cent of people in B.C. disagree. This view is also more likely to be held by men (62 per cent) than women (55 per cent), but even 58 per cent of young Canadians, aged 18-34, agree that the Liberals legalized marijuana for political gain.

“We’ve got a majority of people in this country, about half the population, that is deeply concerned that marijuana is going to roll out and key sections of society are not prepared to deal with it,” said John Wright, CEO of Dart Insight. “The motive is purely political, but the impact at the local level is very real…. If it comes off the rails, the Liberals may pay a price for it in the next election.”

For complete story https://nationalpost.com/cannabis/deeply-concerned-marijuana-legalization-moving-too-fast-for-most-canadians-poll-suggests