Stop Oxy

Critics Say California Resistant to Strengthened Overdose Reversal Drugs

Post author:Melissa
Post published:October 29, 2022
Post category:fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:3 mins read

Fentanyl, a drug that is up to 100 times stronger than morphine, has become a common adulterant in street drugs. Officials say this is the reason so many fentanyl encounters result in death; most people don’t mean to take it. When an opioid-naïve user ends up ingesting fentanyl, sometimes the drugs are so potent that normal-strength Naloxone, an opioid reversal drug, has little effect. EMTs have anecdotes of using multiple cans of fentanyl to attempt to bring fentanyl overdoses back to life. However, stronger and more effective opioid-reversal drugs are available.

Fentanyl Overdoses Are Becoming More Common

Fentanyl is now found in cocaine, heroin, speed, and counterfeit pills such as Xanax or Oxycontin. And they’re easier to get than ever. Law enforcement finds drug dealers on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Signal. When one forum becomes risky to use for …

Para-fluorofentanyl Increasingly Found In Fatal Overdoses

Post author:Melissa
Post published:September 30, 2022
Post category:fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:3 mins read

Para-flourofentanyl, a fentanyl analog that is even stronger than its predecessor, has increasingly been found in the blood of overdose victims, according to a report by the CDC. While many people may not be aware they’re taking the drug, it’s now commonly added to counterfeit fentanyl pills, often with deadly results.

What Is Para-fluorofentanyl?

Para-Fluorofentanyl is an opioid analgesic analog of fentanyl, a drug commonly used in surgeries due to its painkilling and sedative powers. Fentanyl is the top cause of overdose deaths in the United States and is often found as an additive to drugs. Many users who are inexperienced with opioids end up overdosing when exposed for the first time.

Initially developed by Janssen Pharmaceutica in the 1960s, p-Fluorofentanyl never made it to market. Amateur chemists tried to sell it on the streets in the early 1980s. However, …

Gov. Newsom Vetoes Safe Injection Sites Bill

Post author:Melissa
Post published:August 23, 2022
Post category:california
Reading time:3 mins read

This week, Governor Newsom vetoed a bill that would have legalized “safe injection sites” in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland. The program would have provided space, employed clinical workers, and provided harm reduction supplies and services for people who use injected drugs like heroin.

The centers would also offer a pathway to recovery, with information on drug treatment, access to MAT, and other necessary addiction recovery resources.

What Would The Injection Site Legislation Entail?

The legislation would have legalized supervised injection sites in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland. The program, meant to provide safety and help prevent overdoses, would have been in place through 2027, when the bill would need to be passed again. Fentanyl, a drug that has caused the bulk of overdoses throughout the past few years, could have been tested for at the sites.…

Tennessee’s Absolute Medical Care (AMC) Owner Convicted of Distributing Opioids

Post author:Melissa
Post published:July 29, 2022
Post category:doctors OxyContin addiction
Reading time:3 mins read

The owner of a treatment center that was a front for drug dealing in Tennessee has now been formally convicted of crimes related to the distribution of opioids. The doctor was prescribing opioids like Oxycontin to people who may have been seeking help for their addiction. Absolute Medical Care (AMC), owned by 54-year-old Hau T. La, MD, of Brentwood, was caught up in a scandal over the revelations in 2021. Now, he’s been convicted for the crimes, alongside many of his employees.

The trial revealed that while advertising addiction recovery services, Mr. La also prescribed highly addictive opioids to his clients. Many of them had come to him for help with beating their substance use disorder. Instead, they were manipulated and plied into silence with drugs while they paid in cash. Mr. La did not accept insurance.

Profiting Off The

…

SCOTUS Sides With Pill Mill Doctors On Controlled Substances Act

Post author:Melissa
Post published:June 28, 2022
Post category:oxycontin epidemic pill mill
Reading time:3 mins read

A ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States found that doctors who mis-prescribe or overprescribed opioids must have done so purposefully to be criminally charged. Many doctors who have been charged during the opioid crisis have been accused of being “pill mills” and cranking out prescriptions almost maliciously. But if the doctors didn’t know or purposefully violated the Controlled Substances Act, they should not be charged, wrote Justice Breyer in the SCOTUS ruling.

The Opioid Cases That Made The Decision

Two different doctors had their cases kicked up to the Supreme Court, both of them facing over 20 years in prison and claiming their prescriptions for patients were written in good faith. Both doctors faced claims that they were writing prescriptions to help people with legitimate pain. They did not know they were addicting people and didn’t realize …

Fentanyl Overdoses Among The Young Are Killing

Post author:Melissa
Post published:May 23, 2022
Post category:fentanyl fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:3 mins read

Young people are getting back together in real life, and with that socializing comes new experiences. Kids are being kids, pushing boundaries, partying, and rebelling. Snapchat, TikTok, and other apps put things like Molly pills and other club drugs in their hands overnight. Many of the drug dealers drop off packages in mailboxes at night. And the drug users, aged as young as fourteen or as old as in their 30s, don’t have the experience or know-how to test their drugs for fentanyl. And due to their lack of opioid exposure, this leads to overdoses – and death. Teens and young adults are overdosing at record rates.

Why Are Drugs Tainted With Fentanyl?

Nobody knows just one reason for drugs being tainted with fentanyl. Often the powder for club drugs and opioids comes from overseas. Drug dealers may mix the …

Pain Management Intervention Reduces Opioid Use

Post author:Melissa
Post published:April 29, 2022
Post category:prescription drugs
Reading time:2 mins read

According to a study on a hospital intervention program for people with thyroid cancer operations, preoperative counseling and having multiple ways to control pain reduced the amount of opioids patients needed. Post-operative opioid prescriptions were dramatically reduced among many thyroid cancer patients discharged. Because of personalized medication management, fewer people took opioids home from the hospital.

Supporting Patients’ Pain Management Individual Needs

The study’s findings were retrospective and focused on thyroid cancer surgery. The study showed that hospitalized people needed very small amounts of postoperative opioid medication for pain management. The authors wrote that offering multiple types of pain management helped manage pain. “Adequate postoperative pain control was achieved using non-opioid interventions. Implementing an intervention to decrease the quantity of unnecessarily prescribed opioid medications during hospital discharge may help to reduce the risk of opioid addiction and overdose in patients …

Fentanyl Is The Leading Cause Of Death Among Young And Middle-Aged Adults

Post author:Melissa
Post published:March 28, 2022
Post category:fentanyl epidemic
Reading time:2 mins read

For adults aged 18-45, fentanyl is the most common cause of death in the United States of America, according to new data from the CDC. The deaths outnumbered car wrecks, alcohol-related deaths (which also increased), and cancer. Fentanyl is here to stay, and it’s killing young people. Why is it the leading cause of death? What can people do to help prevent these deaths, individuals, or communities?

Fentanyl Is Often An Adulterant

Many people who overdose on fentanyl have no idea they are taking it. This may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s true. Fentanyl has been found as an adulterant on both the East and the West Coast. It’s been added to cocaine, meth, molly, and opioid pills sold as Oxy.

There has even been a case of fentanyl added to black-market marijuana in California.

It’s not clear …

Biden Allocates $30 Million To Harm Reduction Efforts

Post author:Melissa
Post published:February 16, 2022
Post category:U.S. government
Reading time:3 mins read

The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a federal grant focused on community-based harm reduction services, supporting groups that help provide Naloxone and other vital tools to people with substance use disorder.

The grant, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), is the first of its kind. Conservatives have been skeptical of the usefulness of harm reduction efforts. The funds, meant to help prevent overdoses and needle-spread diseases, have come under scrutiny almost as soon as they were announced. There is still much stigma and misunderstanding surrounding addiction and recovery.

What Is Harm Reduction?

Typically, harm reduction efforts are focused on the deadliest drugs, such as fentanyl and heroin. When targeting opioid users, the focus is on preventing death and disease. Some efforts, like needle exchange programs, have been around for ages. Unfortunately, many …

Alaska Doctor Wrote 20,000 Opioid Scripts Causing 5 Deaths

Post author:Melissa
Post published:January 21, 2022
Post category:doctors pill mill
Reading time:2 mins read

A doctor located in Alaska wrote over 20,000 opioid prescriptions in six years. 64-year-old David Chisholm pleaded guilty last June to unlawful dispensing and distributing a controlled substance. He has now been sentenced to nearly three years in prison. After that, he will spend 34 months in jail. He can no longer practice medicine in the State of Alaska. He will also be required to pay $25,000 in restitution.

The illegally prescribed opioids, prosecutors said, resulted in the deaths of five patients.

Illegally Prescribing Potent Opioids

Chisholm is accused of operating a “pill mill” of sorts when he illegally prescribed patients thousands of opioid pills out of his private practice, Camelot Family Health Clinic in Wasilla, Alaska. As a result, people could go to him to get a variety of opioids, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and fentanyl.

Wasilla is …