FDA declares popular alt-medicine kratom an opioid
by MAGGIE FOX 7/2/2018
The Food and Drug Administration declared the popular herbal product kratom to be an opioid on Tuesday, opening a new front in its battle to get people to stop using it.
New research shows kratom acts in the brain just as opioids do, FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. And he said the agency has documented 44 cases in which kratom at least helped kill people – often otherwise healthy young people.
“Taken in total, the scientific evidence we’ve evaluated about kratom provides a clear picture of the biologic effect of this substance,” Gottlieb wrote.
The dangers of using alt-medicine kratom
Kratom is used by some as a home remedy for opioid addiction – and by others just for fun. It has a passionate following.
“Kratom should not be used to treat medical conditions, nor should it be used as an alternative to prescription opioids. There is no evidence to indicate that kratom is safe or effective for any medical use.”
Last November, the FDA cautioned people not to use kratom.
Supporters of kratom use have been fighting to keep it legal for years. The Drug Enforcement Administration temporarily listed kratom as a Schedule 1 controlled substance last August, but withdrew the decision after an outcry and a targeted petition effort.
Related: Kratom can kill you, FDA says
The FDA says scientific evaluation shows there is no wiggle room.
“As the scientific data and adverse event reports have clearly revealed, compounds in kratom make it so it isn’t just a plant – it’s an opioid,” Gottlieb wrote.
For complete article KratomToxic
Meth, the Forgotten Killer, Is Back. And It’s Everywhere.
By FRANCES ROBLES FEB. 13, 2018
The scourge of crystal meth, with its exploding labs and ruinous effect on teeth and skin, has been all but forgotten amid national concern over the opioid crisis. But 12 years after Congress took aggressive action to curtail it, meth has returned with a vengeance. Here in Oregon, meth-related deaths vastly outnumber those from heroin. At the United States border, agents are seizing 10 to 20 times the amounts they did a decade ago. Methamphetamine, experts say, has never been purer, cheaper or more lethal
Meth Seizures Are on the Rise Across the Nation
The amount of methamphetamine seized by U.S. authorities has been increasing, especially in Southwest field offices.
But meth, it turns out, was only on hiatus. When the ingredients became difficult to come by in the United States, Mexican drug cartels stepped in. Now fighting meth often means seizing large quantities of ready-made product in highway stops.
For more https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/us/meth-crystal-drug.html
ALCOHOL AND MARIJUANA TOGETHER MAGNIFIES DRIVING DIFFICULTIES
13/2/18Bottom of Form Mixing Alcohol and Marijuana Amplifies THC in the System
Three news stories exemplify the tragic results of mixing alcohol and marijuana before getting behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. Most recently, a suspected-DUI driver crashed into a California Highway patrolman in a parked vehicle on Christmas Eve. Andrew Camilleri, 33, died instantly. He left behind a wife and three children.
A driver who drank alcohol and smoked marijuana killed CHP Officer Andrew Camilleri, on Chrstmas Eve.
A New York teen admitted that he used both marijuana and beer before the crash that killed his 16-year-old friend on August 31. Another 14 year-old in the vehicle was injured. Authorities have charged the teen with vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. Yet, the teen claimed that he didn’t feel that he was ‘messed up.’ He said that he had taken 3 or 4 hits of a joint, and drank from two partial cans of beer. But when driving, he “encountered a deer on the road and swerved to avoid it,” leading to the crash.
For complete story http://www.poppot.org/2018/02/13/alcohol-marijuana-together-magnifies-driving-difficulties/
Tampa man who blamed edible marijuana for airline melee pleads guilty
Associated Press Published: February 12, 2018
This July 7, 2017, photo taken the FBI and released via the U.S. Attorney\’s Office in Seattle shows the aftermath of a cabin on Delta Flight 129 from Seattle to Beijing, after authorities say flight attendants struggled with a passenger who lunged for an exit door. A Florida man who brawled with flight attendants and passengers when he tried to open the exit door of a Delta Air Lines flight bound from Seattle to China has pleaded guilty to four felony charges. The Seattle Times reports 24-year-old Joseph Daniel Hudek IV, of Tampa, pleaded guilty Friday, Feb. 9, 2018, in U.S. District Court in Seattle to one count of interfering with a flight-crew member and three counts of assault on an aircraft with a potential deadly weapon.
SEATTLE – A Tampa man who authorities say wielded a wine bottle in a brawl with flight attendants and passengers as he tried to open the door of a Delta Air Lines flight from Seattle to China has pleaded guilty to four felony charges.
Joseph Hudek IV, 24, entered the plea Friday in federal court in Seattle to one count of interfering with a member of a flight crew and three counts of assault on an aircraft with a potential deadly weapon, The Seattle Times reported.
The plea came after Hudek filed an affidavit with the court stating that he bought and ingested \”edible marijuana\” in Seattle just before his flight.
\”Later, while on the airplane and after I had consumed the marijuana, I began to feel dramatically different,\” Hudek said in the document…
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More government agencies in Louisiana file suit against opioid companies
- BY TYLER BRIDGES | [email protected] FEB 7, 2018 – 4:22 PM
This Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017 photo shows an arrangement of pills of the opioid oxycodone-acetaminophen in New York. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison) Patrick Sison
The Orleans Parish sheriff is preparing to file a lawsuit against drug makers as more government agencies across Louisiana join a growing national effort to win big damages over the costs that taxpayers have allegedly incurred as a result of the opioid crisis.
James M. Williams, an attorney with Chehardy Sherman Williams in Metairie, said he expected to file the lawsuit this month on behalf of Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman.
Meanwhile, a major Metairie-based treatment center, Addiction Recovery Resources, filed suit on Tuesday in Orleans Parish Civil District Court.
The suit by the treatment center, which also has an office in New Orleans, “specifically targets the distributors of prescription opioids in Louisiana for knowingly exploiting chronic pain patients and their doctors with deceptive marketing schemes about the long-term use of opioid medications,” said Lawrence Centola, an attorney with Martzell, Bickford and Centola.
Not previously reported, Bossier Parish was the first parish to file suit in Louisiana, on Dec. 29.
More are likely to follow. “Every parish is going through the deliberative process of attorney selection and comparing information on totaling up the damages,” said Patrick Jackson, the parish attorney in Bossier Parish.
For more http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_5fcd0a64-0c55-11e8-8620-dff84411d33b.html
Taubes Give $14.5 Million to Address Youth Addiction, Concussions
FEBRUARY 5, 2018
San Francisco-based Taube Philanthropies has announced gifts totaling $14.5 million from Tad and Dianne Taube to the Stanford University School of Medicineand Lucile Packard Children\’s Hospital Stanford in support of child and adolescent health.
A gift of $9.5 million will launch the Tad and Dianne Taube Youth Addiction Initiative, which will focus on understanding the causes and advancing the treatment and prevention of addiction during adolescence. The funds will endow the program\’s directorship; a postdoctoral fellowship for an early-career researcher or clinician in child and adolescent mental health (with a focus on youth addiction); and faculty scholar awards in the areas of clinical care, research, and community engagement. As part of ongoing efforts at Stanford Medicine and Packard Children\’s to address mental health among young people between the ages of 12 and 25, the initiative will seek to fully address addiction starting at its earliest exposure in adolescence
For complete story https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/taubes-give-14.5-million-to-address-youth-addiction-concussions
ADDICTION TREATMENT PROVIDERS JOIN DUTCH HOSPITALS\’ LAWSUIT AGAINST TOBACCO INDUSTRY
By Janene Pieters on February 6, 2018
The Dutch Network for Addiction Care, an umbrella organization for various organizations dealing with addiction, is joining a major lawsuit against the tobacco industry. \”The cigarette is a criminal product and all \’dealers\’ must be dealt with. This product is so harmful. It\’s unbelievable that it is just in the supermarket\”, spokesperson Robert van de Graaf of the network said to AD.
Lawyer Benedicte Ficq is handling this lawsuit, which is now supported by the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital in Amsterdam, the University Medical Center in Groningen, a number of lung cancer patients, cancer association KWF and various civil society organizations.
The parties involved in the lawsuit are accusing the four large tobacco producers in the Netherlands of aggravated assault with death as result. It is now up to the Public Prosecution Service to decide whether or not the tobacco companies can be prosecuted. Last week Marieke van der Molen of the Public Prosecution Service could not tell AD when the decision will be made. \”This is legally a very complex case.\”
Annually around 20 thousand people in the Netherlands die as a result of smoking, according to NU.nl.
For complete article https://nltimes.nl/2018/02/06/addiction-treatment-providers-join-dutch-hospitals-lawsuit-tobacco-industry
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Sooooo wait on, you did all catch that right? No sure what I’m talking about? Ok, once more into the realm of cognitive/policy dissonance… \”The cigarette is a criminal product and all \’dealers\’ must be dealt with. This product is so harmful. It\’s unbelievable that it is just in the supermarket”… This is coming out of the same country that gave us ‘pot shops/cannabis cafes’?
Right now, Big Marijuana (Big Tobacco 2.0) is going to foist an even worse public health crisis on our societies when it gets its way! Stopping it before it goes any further would be best practice… but hey, we only seem to consider ‘best practice’ after the catastrophe of ‘permission’ unleashes the damage, and the burden of disease outstrips the ‘revenues’ from the product!
Who are the well-paid clowns who are overseeing drug and health policy chaos and ultimate crisis???
One thing is for certain, job security for allied health care is one ‘postivie’ outcome of bad drug policy management…. Ah, but who will fund these well-paid health positions in the financial ‘black hole’ that is ‘health care’? I know! We’ll sue the growers and manufacturers of the life, health, and family destroying product!
And around we go again!!!!
Let’s get smarter now https://learnaboutsam.org/faq/
A QUARTER of children have now tried drugs with youngsters able to access illegal substances on social networks
- Social media is being blamed for a boom in drug use among children
- A quarter of school pupils now claim to have taken illegal substances
- Number of 11 to 15-year-olds who had admitted to trying drugs had shot up
- Has risen from 15 to 24 per cent in just two years, official report indicates
Social media is being blamed for a boom in drug use among children, as a quarter of school pupils now claim to have taken illegal substances.
Charities last night warned that children have never been more exposed to drugs.
An official report released yesterday said the number of 11 to 15-year-olds who had admitted to trying drugs had shot up from 15 to 24 per cent in just two years.
Experts said dangerous substances, from cannabis to cocaine, were more available than ever, with youngsters able to access them on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.
Social media is being blamed for a boom in drug use among children, as a quarter of school pupils now claim to have taken illegal substances. Charities last night warned that children have never been more exposed to drugs (stock image) +1
Social media is being blamed for a boom in drug use among children, as a quarter of school pupils now claim to have taken illegal substances. Charities last night warned that children have never been more exposed to drugs (stock image)
The warning comes weeks after a Daily Mail investigation exposed how drug dealers were openly using the platforms to target children.
Almost a fifth of pupils said they had taken drugs within the past year, with girls just as likely as boys to have used them.
More than one in ten 11-year-olds said they had tried drugs, rising to 37 per cent by the age of 15, according to the data compiled by NHS Digital. Nick Hickmott, from charity Addaction, said: ‘The exposure is greater year upon year for young people, especially around substances like cannabis.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5365491/Quarter-children-tried-drugs.html#ixzz56qCBisLi
UK Drug Use Statistics 2018
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistics-on-drug-misuse-england-2018
