“Opioid overdose is typically reversible through the timely administration of the drug naloxone and the provision of emergency care. However, access to naloxone and other emergency treatment is often limited by laws and that pre-date the overdose epidemic. In an attempt to reverse this unprecedented increase in preventable overdose deaths, a number of states have recently amended those laws to increase access to emergency care and treatment for opiate overdose.”
The Network for Public Health Law has published an update on access to naloxone by state and Good Samaritan laws.
http://www.networkforphl.org/_asset/qz5pvn/network-naloxone-10-4.pdf
Source: Network for Public Health Law – May, 2013
“Drug courts have made a surprisingly small contribution to the crime reduction that has occurred over the past twenty years. They process only a small fraction of drug-involved offenders within the criminal justice system, and an even smaller fraction of offenders who commit serious crimes. Most chronic cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine users who reach court will end up in jail or prison, often for minor crimes.
“Being diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease usually triggers immediate treatment. But a growing number of people infected with hepatitis C are putting off therapy, choosing instead to roll the dice and wait for a new generation of drugs to become available.
Each intravenous drug user contracting Hepatitis C is likely to infect around 20 other people with the virus, half of these transmissions occurring in the first two years after the user is first infected, a new study estimates.
Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems
Why is it that most opioid-dependent patients aren’t enrolled in medication-assisted treatment (MAT), despite its proven effectiveness?
This new report from RAND Corporation provides a nonpartisan primer that should be of interest to those who are new to the field of drug policy, as well as those who have been working in the trenches. It begins with an overview of problems and policies related to illegal drugs in the United States, including the nonmedical use of prescription drugs. It then discusses the efficacy of U.S. drug policies and programs, including long-standing issues that deserve additional attention. Next, the paper lists the major funders of research and analysis in the area and describes their priorities. By highlighting the issues that receive most of the funding, this discussion identifies where gaps remain. 
Reuters reported on August 19 that the United States Preventive Services Task force, a government-backed group of clinicians and scientists, is expected to make a new recommendation on HIV screening available for public comment before the end of the year.
The prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) is disproportionately high among individuals in U.S. drug treatment programs. Therefore, such programs are ideal settings for the provision of services targeting viral hepatitis, including screening, education, vaccine prevention, and treatment. This National Institute of Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network (NIDA-CTN) study assessed the availability and comprehensiveness of viral hepatitis services within US drug treatment programs. Administrators from 319 drug treatment programs within the NIDA-CTN were invited to participate via survey, and 84% responded. Data were compared between programs that provided methadone (n=89) and those that did not (n=180). Most programs were private, not-for-profit, free-standing facilities but varied in most other aspects (e.g., geographic location, program size, and medical versus nonmedical staffing).
There’s a difference between a drug overdose and a homicide, even if the drug was heroin and the person who died was injected by a friend. At least, that is the view of Maryland’s chief medical examiner, David R. Fowler, MD, as reported in The Baltimore Sun this spring. But now, Dr. Fowler has done just that: declared a homicide in which a person was injected by someone—a friend, as it turned out—and then died. Amber Brown and her girlfriend drank alcohol and injected each other with heroin in Baltimore one night. Amber Brown fell asleep and didn’t wake up.
The worldwide war on drugs has been a “remarkable failure,” only serving to drive the spread of HIV among drug users and their sexual partners, suggests a new report published by The Global Commission on Drug Policy.
In 1992 in Los Angeles, where needle exchanges were already in effect, the rate of HIV among those who injected drugs was 8.4%. In 1993, the HIV rate in Miami for that population was the highest in the country: 48%. Although Miami put into place HIV-prevention programs, there has never been a large-scale needle exchange program there. Today the rate of HIV among injection drug users in Miami is 16%. In Los Angeles, the rate stayed low, and as of 2009, the most recent data available, it was 5%.
By OBREAKSL penny stocks