Offering treatment to drug users instead of arresting them reduces crime and addiction – new research into police diversion program shows

My team's research shows that people who were offered substance abuse treatment, instead of being arrested, decreased their drug use more than people who were not offered substance abuse treatment and were arrested...

https://theconversation.com/offering-treatment-to-drug-users-instead-of-arresting-them-reduces-crime-and-addiction-new-research-into-police-diversion-program-shows-212527

Inside New York City’s Radical Approach to America’s Overdose Crisis - The New York Times - Opinion

"I'd love Popeyes," she said. "And some water." 

By noon, he had returned with enough chicken to feed three people, plus drinks and sides. He took a chair out of the van for her to sit in, and they ate together and talked. She would not say much, except that she was physically uncomfortable. He spoke to her as gently as he did the first day they met, but he was adamant now. She needed a shower and clean clothes. She needed to get real rest and to see a doctor. She needed to get indoors, fast. OnPoint could help with all of that, he said. There was hot food there and medical professionals and some very nice case managers she could talk to. 

She nodded and tried to make a joke, then stopped abruptly. "I know it's not really funny," she said. Before the conversation could continue, she caught sight of a man she said she needed to talk to and scurried off with a half-eaten chicken leg still in hand. Mr. Jones sighed heavily and put the chair back in the van. He was not sure she'd heard a word of what he had said. 

But the next day, she arrived at OnPoint's headquarters, where all the resources that Mr. Jones had told her about were waiting. And with the promise of new life heavy in her womb, she finally went inside...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/opinion/drug-crisis-addiction-harm-reduction.html

The concerns and challenges of being a U.S. teen: What the data show - Pew Research Center

American teens have a lot on their minds. Substantial shares point to anxiety and depression, bullying, and drug and alcohol use (and abuse) as major problems among people their age, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of youth ages 13 to 17. How common are these and other experiences among U.S. teens? ....
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/26/the-concerns-and-challenges-of-being-a-u-s-teen-what-the-data-show/

Alcohol is a Drug, and It's Time We Addressed It - Rewire

Alcoholics Anonymous just wasn't working for Allie McCormick. Despite years of wrestling with her relationship with alcohol, she didn't identify as an alcoholic, she couldn't relate to the higher-power aspect of AA and she found the meetings downright depressing. She also struggled to find a support system that would help her end her cycle of dependency....
https://www.rewire.org/living/alcohol-drug-time-addressed/

Legal Marijuana Dispensaries Appear to Reduce Opioid Abuse - Mother Jones

Does access to legal marijuana reduce opioid abuse? It's a tricky question to answer, but Mark Kleiman points today to a recent Rand report that tests the effect of medical marijuana laws between 1999-2013 on both opioid deaths and treatment for opioid addiction. ....
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/04/legal-marijuana-dispensaries-appear-to-reduce-opioid-abuse/

North Carolina’s big school voucher problem - Salon.com

A state education program’s accountability called into question....
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/26/north-carolinas-big-school-voucher-problem/#.WkM9oCBbgrU.reddit

Are a third of people with drug problems on Medicaid, as Elizabeth Warren said? | PolitiFact

In a video denouncing the Senate health care bill’s slashing of Medicaid funding, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., emphasized the importance of Medicaid in battling the opioid crisis. Warren called an additional $45 billion introduced in the new Senate health care bill to fight the opioid crisis insufficient if spending on Medicaid is to decrease....
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jul/18/elizabeth-warren/are-third-people-drug-problems-medicaid-elizabeth-/

Business Insider: Trump's health secretary isn't a fan of the 'gold standard' substance-use treatment — bad news for the opioid crisis

US Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was visiting West Virginia on Tuesday for a "listening tour" to brainstorm solutions to the current opioid crisis when a reporter asked Price his thoughts on various drug treatment options...
http://www.businessinsider.com/hhs-secretary-tom-price-medication-assisted-treatment-suboxone-news-opioid-crisis-2017-5

In Portugal, Drug Use Is Treated As A Medical Issue, Not A Crime

Gandelina Damião, 78, is permanently hunched, carrying her sorrow. She lost three children to heroin in the 1990s. A quarter century ago, her cobblestone lane, up a grassy hill from Lisbon's Tagus River, was littered with syringes. She recalls having to search for her teenagers in graffitied stone buildings nearby, where they would shoot up....
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/18/524380027/in-portugal-drug-use-is-treated-as-a-medical-issue-not-a-crime?ft=nprml&f=1001

Report: To expand substance abuse treatment, embrace Obamacare

A new report on substance abuse treatment recommends building on the successes of the ACA....
https://thinkprogress.org/substance-abuse-aca-c61682f744e2

Author Says Hitler Was 'Blitzed' On Cocaine And Opiates During The War (Terry Gross, Fresh Air)

...Author Norman Ohler tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that Hitler did have a secret, but it wasn't a weapon. Instead, it was a mix of cocaine and opioids that he had become increasingly dependent upon. "Hitler needed those highs to substitute [for] his natural charisma, which ... he had lost in the course of the war," Ohler says...
Interview:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/07/518986612/author-says-hitler-was-blitzed-on-cocaine-and-opiates-during-the-war

What Iceland knows about preventing teen drug abuse that the rest of the world doesn’t (Quartz)

It's a little before three on a sunny Friday afternoon and Laugardalur Park, near central Reykjavik, looks practically deserted. There's an occasional adult with a pushchair, but the park’s surrounded by apartment blocks and houses, and school’s out—so where are all the kids?…
https://qz.com/905322/what-iceland-knows-about-preventing-teen-drug-abuse-that-the-rest-of-the-world-doesnt/

'Unbroken Brain' Explains Why 'Tough' Treatment Doesn't Help Drug Addicts (Terry Gross, Fresh Air)

..."We have this idea that if we are just cruel enough and mean enough and tough enough to people with addiction, that they will suddenly wake up and stop, and that is not the case," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross...
Interview:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/07/485087604/unbroken-brain-explains-why-tough-treatment-doesnt-help-drug-addicts

The Atlantic: The Surgeon General's New Approach on Substance Abuse Has Policy Implications

The surgeon general's new approach on substance abuse has policy implications for law enforcement. ...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/addiction-health-crisis-criminal-justice/508409/

Study Suggests Anti-Trans Parents May Literally Be Killing Their Kids

Rejection from family members seems to have a significant influence on the health of transgender people, a new study finds. Trans people whose spouses, parents, or children chose not to speak with them after transitioning experienced much higher rates of suicide attempts and substance abuse.

The study, conducted by researchers at the City University of New York, used data from the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), which found that 41 percent of respondents had attempted suicide, far above the national average — 1.6 percent of the general population. According to the new analysis, how trans people have been treated by their family was a significant factor for that outcome:....
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/05/31/3783369/transgender-family-rejection-suicide/

North Carolina Police Chief Implores Officers To Stop Arresting Addicts

In a sharp turn away from the War on Drugs, the chief of police in Nashville, North Carolina announced in February that drug addicts in the small town would be taken to rehabilitation centers instead of jail. Now, in response to a growing opioid crisis, the chief is calling on other law enforcement officers across the state to do the same.

Three months ago, following an “alarming” spate of prescription drug overdoses in Nash County, Thomas Bashore of the Nashville Police Department unveiled the HOPE Initiative to help addicts find treatment and divert them away from the criminal justice system. In lieu of arresting and imprisoning addicts, the initiative encourages them to go the department voluntarily and meet with a community volunteer who can connect them to counseling and treatment facilities. Addicts who have drugs or paraphernalia when they enter the department aren’t penalized.

During the Law Enforcement and Community Summit on Heroin last Thursday, Bashore appealed to officers to implement similar rehabilitative policies in departments throughout the state, in order to combat the ballooning opioid epidemic....
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/05/16/3778547/north-carolina-police-chief-combats-drug-addiction/

Why Portland, Maine Is Currently Exhibit A in How Austerity Can Make America's Opioid Crisis Even Worse

People across the country have heard of Maine’s far-right governor Paul LePage, who openly uses racist epithets to dehumanize and scapegoat African Americans and just vetoed a bill to expand access to the proven drug overdose antidote Naloxone, stating that it "does not truly save lives; it merely extends them until the next overdose.”

Lesser known is that Maine's supposedly progressive city of Portland is on the verge of compounding the LePage-wrought human rights disaster by potentially shuttering the India Street Public Health Center, the city's only public clinic that provides overdose antidote prescriptions, sexually transmitted infection testing, a needle-exchange program and an HIV positive primary health care clinic that even the local government acknowledges has a stellar track record....
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/why-portland-maine-currently-exhibit-how-govt-ignorance-and-austerity-can-make-americas-opioid

Governor Blocks Access To Lifesaving Drug For Heroin Addicts

Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) vetoed a bill Wednesday that could save the lives of hundreds of people struggling with drug abuse in the state. The bill would have allowed pharmacists to dispense naloxone — the drug that once injected, reverses opioid overdoses — to anyone who may be at risk of overdosing, or someone close to them who could administer it in an emergency.

LePage said that making naloxone more accessible would only “perpetuate the cycle of addiction” in Maine, a state at the epicenter of the opioid crisis....
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/04/21/3771734/naloxone-maine-vetoed/