B.C. files lawsuit against opioid makers and distributors for deceptive marketing

ANDREA WOO AND KAREN HOWLETT

VANCOUVER –  PUBLISHED AUGUST 29,

OxyContin pills are arranged for a photo at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. The B.C. government has announced a lawsuit against Purdue and dozens of other companies for their role in fuelling Canada\’s opioid epidemic.

TOBY TALBOT/THE CANADIAN PRESS

British Columbia is suing Purdue Pharma and dozens of other opioid manufacturers for what the government alleges was “corporate corruption and negligence” that fuelled the overdose crisis, killing thousands of Canadians.

The lawsuit, first reported by The Globe and Mail, is the first case against opioid manufacturers filed by a government in Canada. Attorney-General David Eby said he would be asking other provinces to join.

The lawsuit targets 40 manufactures and distributors, including Purdue, whose OxyContin pain pill has been implicated in triggering Canada’s opioid epidemic. The list of defendants includes brand-name and generic manufacturers and alleges they deceptively marketed opioids as both being less addictive than actually known and for conditions they were not effective in treating.

“While much attention has been focused on the effects of street drugs contaminated by illicit fentanyl and carfentanil, there is another side of this crisis,” Mr. Eby said Wednesday outside the Supreme Court of British Columbia. “We allege that Purdue was not alone in their illegal actions to drive profits.”

The allegations have not been proven in court and the companies have not yet filed statements of defence.

For complete article https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-bc-files-lawsuit-against-opioid-makers-and-distributors-for/

REMISSION/RECOVERY FROM CANNABIS USE DISORDERS: UPDATE

1. Full remission from cannabis-related problems is possible and probable (67-90% rates in short-term and lifetime rates).
2. CUD remission rates are similar for men and women, but women experience a more rapid onset and stabilization of remission than men.
3. Remission takes time–an average of 32.5 months from CUD onset to one year of remission.
4. CUD remission styles vary, with some people with CUDs achieving remission through deceleration of the frequency and intensity of cannabis use rather than through total abstinence.
5. Abstinence styles of CUD remission are more likely to produce greater enhancements in global functioning than non-abstinent remission patterns.
6. CUD remission can be fragile during its early stages but strengthens over time, suggesting the need for assertive and continuous management, particularly during the first months and years of remission

For more http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/blog/2018/08/remissionrecovery-from-cannabis-use-disorders-update.html

Drug dealers selling chocolate treats like Mars and Smarties packed with high-strength cannabis to KIDS via Instagram

The so-called \’medibles\’ (Marijuana edibles) are the latest way to package drugs according to detectives and are being sold apparently to school pupils

By Paul Drury August 2018, 

DRUG dealers in Scotland are packing sweet treats like Mars bars and Smarties with high-strength cannabis and selling them to KIDS on Instagram, police have warned.

The so-called “medibles” (Marijuana edibles) are the latest way to package drugs according to detectives and are being sold apparently to school pupils.

The items look like a familiar chocolate treats from giant confectionery brands Mars or Smarties — but are full of high-strength cannabis, called ‘skunk’.

They contain the powerful THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), the main psychoactive constituent of cannabis.

Sales at the click of the button were uncovered by the Mail on Sunday, which spent hundreds of pounds on test purchases in Glasgow and Perth.

An undercover female reporter was warned the chocolate was “very strong” and only to eat a third of a cake to ensure she was not “knocked out.”

“Make no mistake, this is on our radar and we are actively monitoring social media sites. Anyone caught supplying medible products should know it could result in a prison sentence. It is a controlled drug and will be treated the same way as other controlled drugs

“Some of the dealers are now operating huge operations almost like multinational companies — with managing directors and distributors.”

For more https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/3087787/drugs-mars-smarties-cannabis-instagram-children-scotland/

Recovery and the ‘Nanny State’ — A note to the ‘right to recreational drug use’ lobby!

Reprinted with permission!

When elements of a society (most always from the ‘grown-ups’) say, “I don’t want a nanny state, with laws and regulations keeping me from doing what I want”, then ‘movements’ emerge seeking to mandate the removal of prohibitions and prevention on that risky edge. This is no more apparent than with the vociferous minority seeking to normalize illicit drug use in our culture.

Of course, the lesser protections there are in place, the greater the incidences of harm will follow, and invariably for the most vulnerable — our young.

Besides the utter disregard for ‘others’, what is not only incongruent, but breath-takingly hypocritical, is that this decrying of the ‘Nanny State’ interference only works one way for the societal saboteur!

At the commencement of their campaigns, these egocentric self-indulgers demand to be left alone to do what they want but seem to have no repulsion in lining up quickly for free health care, welfare benefits and tax-payer funded reparations when their hedonism eventually fails them.

So, if we are to stop being a Nanny State, then that must work at every level and in all directions, right?  Let us permit all drug use, but also permit that only the user pays for both the harm to themselves and others, and without any burden or impost on society they chose to carelessly ignore!

Even the oft quoted anti-nanny state libertarian and 19^th Century social commentator, John Stuart Mills insists some lines be drawn in society, and when it comes to drug use, his following statements couldn’t be more relevant or poignant.

“No person is an entirely isolated being; it is impossible for a person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to himself without mischief reaching at least to his near connections, and often far beyond them.” And, “If he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties, he not only brings evil upon all who depended upon him for any portion of their happiness, but disqualifies himself for rendering the services which he owes to his fellow creatures generally, perhaps becomes a burden on their affection or benevolence; and if such conduct were very frequent hardly any offense that is committed would detract more from the general sum of good.

And even (it will be added) if the consequences of misconduct could be confined to the vicious or thoughtless individual, ought society to abandon to their own guidance those who are manifestly unfit for it? If protection against themselves is confessedly due to children and persons under age, is not society equally bound to afford it to persons of mature years who are equally incapable of self-government? If gambling, or drunkenness [we would add drug use, of course]… are as injurious to happiness, and as great a hindrance to improvement, as many or most of the acts prohibited by law, why (it may be asked) should not law, so far as is consistent with practicability and social convenience, endeavor to repress these also? …There is no question here (it may be said) about restricting individuality or impeding the trial of new and original experiments in living. The only things it is sought to prevent are things which have been tried and condemned from the beginning of the world until now; things which experience has shown not to be useful or suitable to any person’s individuality. There must be some length of time and amount of experience, after which a moral or prudential truth may be regarded as established, and it is merely desired to prevent generation after generation from falling over the same precipice which has been fatal to their predecessors.”¹

Of course, not all current drug users are of this epicurean ilk, and many are trapped in the tyranny of addiction and need support, care and empowerment to recover. However, make no mistake, the current lobby is all about engagement with illicit drugs for anything but trauma alleviation!

Drug use exiting recovery is best practice for the well-being and restoration of those currently living with the consequences of decisions to enter the world of drug use — motivators/invitations from everything from uninvited trauma, to the careless and reckless decisions ‘to smash as many drugs as I can and party hard!’. This Recovery Month we encourage all in such situations to seek out and at least commence that journey to drug use exiting recovery.

However, the adage remains irrevocably true — “Prevention is ALWAYS better than cure!” When it comes to illicit drug use, and the misuse of the legal and most damaging drug, Alcohol, please think not only of yourself, but of those nearest to you. The life you enrich may not just be your own!

L’chaim — To life, not instead of it!

Shane Varcoe — The Dalgarno Institute.

1. 1. Mill J.S.  (1859) On Liberty London: Parker & Son, West Strand  Ch 4 Of the limits to the authority of society over the individual: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645o/contents.html

But if you don\’t walk by, if you ask them what it\’s like, there\’s a message everyone we speak to repeats: spice is worse than heroin. It hits you with the physical addiction of heroin and the mental need of crack or cocaine.

\”You don\’t know what you\’re taking, to be honest,\” says one spice user, who says she\’s been off the drug for six days.

\”And when you do take it, it just makes you trip out and sometimes you get this scary feeling. But then it\’ll just wipe you out completely, like stronger than heroin for a good, like, 20 minutes. And then you\’ll come round without even realising you\’ve been under for the last 20 minutes. Then you spark up another spliff and just go on and on and on.

\”Do not take it. It\’s the worst drug ever. It\’s worse than heroin. Once you\’re hooked on it, you\’re f***ed basically.\”

********

Spice is a man-made drug, usually a mix of herbs or shredded plant material with mind-altering chemicals sprayed on to them. Although it is sold in packets to look like cannabis, the effects come from the chemicals and can vary massively depending on what\’s been used in its production.

It\’s smoked, like a rolled cigarette, is highly addictive and effects can vary between feelings of relaxation and euphoria. However, it also causes a significant reduction in the respiratory system, which causes the body to shut down due to low oxygen levels – hence the zombie-like state. One user said their heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to come out of their chest.

But it doesn\’t just send users into a dazed state. Harry Shapiro, director of DrugWise and a drug information and policy analyst, said one user was taken to A&E in that state, only to go berserk once they came out of it.

Outside the medical centre in Butetown, the woman who\’s been off it for six days – and started smoking it a year and a half before it was made illegal – describes the effect on her behaviour.

\”It\’s affected me big-time with my paranoia\”, she says.

\”I get angry a lot quicker. I\’m not an angry person but it\’s turned me, not violent, but I get really irate within seconds.

\”It\’s not good to come off, it has the same effects as heroin when withdrawing. It\’s psychologically addictive. With crack, it\’s not a physical withdrawal, it\’s psychosis. You see things that aren\’t there, you hear things, people talking to you when they\’re not, you\’re constantly wary and paranoid. I\’ve accused my own friends of robbing me when they haven\’t.\”

In Swansea, Lisa, a heroin user living on the streets, says spice is rife. She tried it once but “it scared the life out of me”.

“Spice is dangerous to me”, she says. Then she says it too: “it is worse than heroin”.

Barrie, a 34-year-old from Port Talbot who struggles with heroin addiction, said he tried spice a couple of times while in prison – where he would be offered the drug on a daily basis – and that all it took was a couple of drags to “knock you out for six”.

“You can be out of your mind,” he says, adding that people in that so-called zombie state can see what is going on but they can’t move.

In general, spice seems to be a problem among the homeless and prison communities. Users describe how they wake up to several texts from dealers, so they rarely have to go looking. In prison, they say it\’s even easier. Inside, the problem has been described as an \”epidemic\” which is putting nurses and inmates at serious risk. People living in Butetown say seeing drug deals outside their homes in broad daylight is now the norm, despite the fact Cardiff\’s biggest police station is a neighbour.

\”We know people who sell it. You can get it in £5 bags, £10 bags,\” says the woman.

\”We get judged for everything but believe it or not, it\’s people who are not homeless who have introduced us to this. Everything is blamed on homeless people. I don\’t want to smoke it. I\’ve been off it for six days. You can\’t just come off it with nothing, though,\” she says, adding that valium and diazepam help.

Another man tells a painful story of how he got addicted. He says he worked a normal job and had his own home but after falling out with his family and becoming addicted to drugs he became another of the city\’s homeless, who have tripled in number in the last ten years, according to an addiction charity. He stands there in his dark tracksuit waiting for his methadone, a 60ml dose.

*******\”

You think it\’s all fun and games. The first time I smoked it, two drags and I was in Llandough (hospital). Do not, at any cost, smoke it. It\’s bad stuff, you don\’t know what\’s in it, it\’s not a drug to smoke and not for human consumption.

\”I\’m off it now and I hope to stay off it. I\’ve got my focus set. I\’m going to do my utmost best to stay off it because I know what it does and I\’ve seen good friends die.\”

http://va.newsrepublic.net/a/6591279243311710725?user_id=6551522476692897801&language=en&region=au&app_id=1239&impr_id=6591557930452011269&gid=6591279243311710725&c=sys

Huge surge in blackmarket cannabis trade and organised crime in California DESPITE drug being legalised, cops reveal in warning to UK

After calls for cannabis to be legalised in the UK police chiefs in Los Angeles – the state’s largest legal weed market – say there’s been a rise in illegal cannabis market even though recreational marijuana was legalised back in January….

But there are hundreds of illegal cannabis stores where customers can buy the drug at cheaper prices than at the heavily regulated and taxed legal dispensaries.

California regulators sent out almost 1,000 cease and desist letters to marijuana businesses they suspected were illegal in April alone.

And in May 142 people were charged in a massive crackdown on the illegal shops.

Lt Spell, who oversees the division\’s cannabis unit, said there had been much more \”illicit activity\” in the past few months.

And he said one of the biggest falsehoods about legalising marijuana is that it will curb illegal activities.

He told Sun Online: “Here in Los Angeles we see a large number of illegal retail stores.

“But we also come across a lot of illegal grows – places where people are growing the cannabis.

“And oftentimes it\’s to export out of state into places where it’s still illegal because the marijuana that might cost, let\’s say $3,000-a-pound here, may cost as much as $4,000- to $6,000-a-pound somewhere else.

“Probably one of the biggest fallacies about the regulation or the legalisation of recreational marijuana is that the illegal activities will go away when in fact, when you look at all of the states – and we\’ve done comparative analysis with other places – all of the places that have allowed recreational marijuana, have seen increases in the illegal activities.

For Complete article https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6708818/black-market-cannabis-trade-california-cops-warning-uk/