harm reduction coalition

The Public Library of Science is no longer considering papers built around research funded by tobacco companies. This comes at a time when the FDA’s new tobacco regulations allow for the approval of products under harm reduction claims.

However, tobacco companies have to show scientific support of their claims, and this includes being published in peer-reviewed journals.

What do you think of Public Library of Science’s decision? Is a study conducted by a tobacco company tainted?

Similarly, the organization who posted this “news” has its own skeletons in the closet. According to SourceWatch, ACSH has been accused of being a corporate front group in the guise of a neutral council on science (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Council_on_Science_and_Health).

So where do we go for our answers? Is it possible to get unbiased information anywhere? Probably not. Unfortunately, everyone has their own agenda. It’s the individual’s responsibility, then, to collect, extract, and synthesize to the best of his or her own ability. In the mean time, SourceWatch may be a good resource to utilize for evaluation of our sources.

I posted about Massachusetts last week and what a great job they were doing. Here’s the link to the official press release. Again, job well done, Massachusetts!

In 1992 The New York Times carried a front-page story about a successful businessman who happened to be a regular heroin user. It began: “He is an executive in a company in New York, lives in a condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, drives an expensive car, plays tennis in the Hamptons and vacations with his wife in Europe and the Caribbean. But unknown to office colleagues, friends, and most of his family, the man is also a longtime heroin user. He says he finds heroin relaxing and pleasurable and has seen no reason to stop using it until the woman he recently married insisted that he do so. ‘The drug is an enhancement of my life,’ he said. ‘I see it as similar to a guy coming home and having a drink of alcohol. Only alcohol has never done it for me.’”

The Times noted that “nearly everything about the 44-year-old executive…seems to fly in the face of widely held perceptions about heroin users.” The reporter who wrote the story and his editors seemed uncomfortable with contradicting official anti-drug propaganda, which depicts heroin use as incompatible with a satisfying, productive life. The headline read, “Executive’s Secret Struggle With Heroin’s Powerful Grip,” which sounds more like a cautionary tale than a success story. And the Times hastened to add that heroin users “are flirting with disaster.” It conceded that “heroin does not damage the organs as, for instance, heavy alcohol use does.” But it cited the risk of arrest, overdose, AIDS, and hepatitis — without noting that all of these risks are created or exacerbated by prohibition.

Interesting piece by one Jacob Sullum for Reason Magazine.

(via privatecompendiumofself)

katharinec:

Proposed state laws in Victoria, Australia will allow authorities to forcibly detain users of drugs and alcohol for a period of two weeks while they take part in a detox program. However human rights groups say that the new legislation could be used to keep binge drinkers and undesirable characters off the street.

Groups such as Youthlaw and the Human Rights Law Resource Centre warn that the Severe Substance Dependence Treatment Bill could be used inappropriately. The experts who support the bill say that these are measures that could save lives. However there is little evidence that involuntary attention – especially in young people – is a necessary or effective form of treatment for the addiction of alcohol or drug dependence.

In Victoria there are already long waiting lists for detox programmes and treatment for substance abuse. Human rights groups are advising the government that it would make more sense to improve access to voluntary treatment rather than take spaces away from people who do actually want treatment.

This is exactly the kind of thing that actually ends up exacerbating the problem. I wonder if there is anything done after the 2-week detox to ensure or help these individuals from relapsing or OD-ing. Detox of the non-alcoholics in this group are prime candidates for overdose, unfortunately.

A married couple faces criminal drug charges after overdosing on heroin laced with a painkiller stronger than morphine, Round Lake Park police said…

Lisa A. Knowles, 37, and her 43-year-old husband, James, were charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia and unlawful possession of a hypodermic needle.

The suburbs of Chicago don’t kid around, huh? Because arresting users is a surefire way to help them to stop using, right?

Alright, again, being too harsh on the police. They’re just enforcers. It’s those pesky lawmakers.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting the Oakland branch of the Harm Reduction Coalition. One of them worked for years in Massachusetts, working with needle exchange programs and underground Naloxone distribution. The Naloxone distribution went “aboveground” in 2008, and this Op-Ed goes into further detail about the why, the what, and the how.

Massachusetts is doing great things with overdose prevention. Job well done!

“The number of accidental drug overdoses — officially referred to as unintentional drug poisoning deaths — was 607 in 2008. Like the number of other accidental deaths, the drug overdose numbers have been ‘pretty steady’ since the 1990s, said Daliah Heller, an assistant commissioner in the health department.

In 2007, drug overdoses began to be coded differently and were reclassified as accidental deaths to bring the city in line with national standards for reporting vital statistics, Ms. Heller said. ‘Previously, those deaths were in the natural death category as related to chronic drug use,’ she said.”

Could 607 deaths have been avoided?

Maybe not all 607 lives could have been spared, but some of them could have had a chance.