Opiophile.org - Opiates in the News and on the Web

Opioids for back pain are linked to increased risk of erectile dysfunction

TheTalkingAsshole — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:04:39 GMT

BMJ 2013; 346 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f3223 (Published 17 May 2013)
Cite this as: BMJ 2013;346:f3223

Men who take opioid analgesics for back pain over a long period may have an increased risk of erectile dysfunction, a study has found.1Long term opioid use has already been linked with hypogonadism.

To explore the relation between the use of drugs for erectile dysfunction or testosterone replacement and opioid use, researchers looked 11 327 men diagnosed with back pain on at least one visit in 2004. Their mean age was 49 years. The researchers examined the prescriptions on pharmacy and medical records of these men six months before and six months after this visit.

Overall, the analysis found that the probability of receiving drugs for erectile dysfunction or testosterone replacement increased with increasing dose and duration of opioid treatment. Among men who received long term opioids, 19% also received prescriptions for erectile dysfunction or testosterone replacement, compared with 12.5% of men receiving opioids at lower doses and 6.7% of men who had no opioid treatment. Long term opioid use was defined as 120 mg morphine equivalents per day for more than 120 days, or 90 days with more than 10 prescriptions.

After adjusting for the men’s ages and other factors that might affect their risk of erection problems, the researchers estimated that long term use of opioid painkillers was linked to a 45% increase in the chance of erection problems (odds ratio 1.45, 95% confidence interval 1.12 to 1.87; P<0.01). Patients prescribed the highest doses of opioids (≥120 mg of morphine equivalents per day) were 58% more likely to have drug treatment for erectile dysfunction or low testosterone (1.58, 1.03 to 2.43). Depressive disorders (odds ratio 1.3, 95% confidence interval 1.06 to 1.60) and the use of sedatives or hypnotics (1.30, 1.08 to 1.56) were also associated with prescriptions for erectile dysfunction or reduced replacement.

The researchers acknowledge that they do not know if the relation between opioid use and sexual dysfunction is causal, although the dose-response association observed strengthened this argument.

They concluded: “For clinicians, our data provide a reminder that information on sexual dysfunction should be part of clinical decision making with regard to long term pain management and provide some evidence regarding its prevalence. Both patients and clinicians should recognise possible opioid effects on sexual [dysfunction] in considering treatment options.
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Notes
Cite this as: BMJ 2013;346:f3223

References
↵Deyo RA, Smith DHM, Johnson ES, Tilloston CJ, Donovan M, Yang X, et al. Prescription opioids for back pain and use of medications for erectile dysfunction. Spine2013;38:909-15.

i was addicted to heroin but

clinton — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:19:52 GMT

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/1043...itans_saved_me

Aaron Ballard’s life changed when he was 18.
He had already been taking drugs for around three years.
He’d started by smoking joints with friends before moving on to speed and then Ecstasy.
But he says there was something different about the first time he took heroin.
“We’d been taking speed and then we started going to nightclubs and taking Ecstasy,” says Aaron, who now lives in Southampton.
“We were in the drug culture. It was all about doing as much as you can – ‘one’s good, two’s better’.

“Then one day a friend of mine said a guy upstairs had started selling heroin and would I like some. I just said ‘yeah’.
“Something changed in me the first time I took it. My life changed profoundly that day.”
Aaron says it took three to four years for him to become a full-blown heroin addict.
“It crept in and became more and more a part of my life, until it dominated it for a long time,”
he says.

Aaron managed to hold down jobs, although he says his behaviour became increasingly erratic.
“For a long time you wouldn’t have known,” says the 33- year-old.

“It was just when everyone went down the pub, I went to a guy’s house and took heroin.”
It was after he started injecting the drug that his life took another significant turn for the worse.
“I woke up one morning and realised that I had a massive heroin problem. It went steadily downhill from there for a number of years.
“At my lowest I was living in a twoman tent for six months with no work, no food and a broken arm.”
That was when he met a couple who gave him a second chance. They let him live in a flat over a shop they had and gave him work.
Aaron doesn’t know why they decided to help him and put their trust in him but he is eternally grateful.
“I’m certain they saved my life,” he says. “Having their support gave me a stable base to spring off and have my recovery. I was in a very bad place but they never judged me. They helped me out in any way they could. They were just really caring people and that’s where my desire to pass that along comes from.”
Aaron broke his heroin addiction around six years ago and has been completely drug free for three years.
It has been a difficult journey to where he is today.
Last year he and a friend, Natalie Garwin (pictured below with Aaron), who he met while they were volunteering at The Art House in Southampton, set up a charity called Momentum to help substance abusers to stay clean by providing activities and encouraging them to organise their own, from walking to music events.

Aaron knows how difficult it can be to stay drug-free and wants to use what he has learnt to help others.
“For me, once I’d done the actual withdrawal, there was no way I’d ever want to do it again – the pain of doing it is a deterrent,” he says.
“It was physical and mental – it was the most painful thing I’ve ever had to do. I think the worst was the mental anguish of knowing that if I went and bought some heroin it would all end.”
Aaron says that since then he had a few ‘lost weekends’ but hasn’t relapsed. However, initially he replaced drugs with alcohol and developed a drinking problem. It was when he discovered running that he was really able to kick his addictions.
This made him realise how important it is for recovering addicts to have something to do with their time, to avoid falling back into their old habits.
“My alcoholism had got really bad. I was drinking myself unconscious every night as a way of coping.
“But I found that running pushed everything away. The only time I felt really focused and together was when I was running.
Over time I switched my addiction from alcoholism to running. I still have to be focused on something all the time. If I find myself procrastinating I can slip into destructive habits quite easily. Running to exhaustion is a really good way of finding a Zen state.”
Aaron and Natalie realised that offering recovering addicts activities to help keep them stay busy might help people to avoid relapse.
They set Momentum up in October, officially signing the charity’s constitution in January.
They offer regular walks, a running club, have put on a cabaret evening which service users helped to run, and are planning to develop a full timetable of engaging activities.
The plan is that the service users themselves will put some of these on, with Aaron and Natalie helping them to do so.
“It really helps because people can be more active and proactive, rather than being at home feeling depressed,” says Aaron.
“In the evenings, even when you’ve essentially recovered, you don’t want to go to the pub.
"So you're sat on your own and your habit is to drink. It’s important to find healthier things to do. The idea of Momentum is to keep people as occupied and active as possible.
“Idleness is the enemy of staying straight.”
Aaron is still in touch with the people who helped him out of his life of addiction and says that because of them he feels motivated to help others.
He adds that he has been through hell but can’t regret his past.
“I’m really happy with the person I am and in my life and to have a purpose,” he says thoughtfully.
“The purpose I have now is totally affected by my past so I wouldn’t change that. I’ve spent too long regretting things. I’ve learnt the future is what you want it to be and I’m really excited about that.”

Good Samaritan Law 'Validation Sal�s Death Was Not in Vain'

zystyl — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:22:13 GMT

From: http://collingswood.patch.com/articl...-vain-915c4cf1

When Gov. Chris Christie at long last signed the 911 Good Samaritan bill, it signaled many things. No longer would bystanders be prosecuted for seeking help for an overdose victim. Drug addicts have a better shot at life. Maybe one less person will die alone and scared.

All of these things ran through Patty DiRenzo�s mind as she watched Christie turn the legislation she championed for years into law. But primarily, her mind was on her son, Sal.

Sal, the guy who everyone loved. The guy who never had a nasty word for anyone. Once you were Sal�s friend, he was your lifelong defender.

Sal, the 26-year-old who died from an accidental heroin overdose in exactly the circumstances the Good Samaritan law seeks to avoid.

�It was almost like validation for me that Sal�s death was not in vain,� DiRenzo, who lives in Gloucester Township, says of the new law. �With determination and persistence, we got it done. Lives are going to be saved.�

New Jersey is now one of 11 states and Washington, DC, with a 911 Good Samaritan law, which provides limited legal protection for people who call 911 when someone overdoses. If they make the call, individuals won�t be arrested or prosecuted for minor drug possession charges or face revocation of parole and probation.

The law comes as drug overdose deaths continue to climb nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked overdose deaths rising for an 11th year through 2010, the most recent data available. In 2010, 38,329 people in the U.S. died from a drug overdose.

Salvatore Marchese was one of them.

'I needed to understand why'

�What if� has confronted DiRenzo time and again since Sal's death on Sept. 23, 2010. What if the person with whom he was using heroin with had reached out for help? What if that person, if not swayed by a moral imperative to call 911, at least knew he wouldn�t be prosecuted? What if Sal could have been saved?

�Kids are being left on the side of the road, they�re being dumped in lots like Sal was, because the kids using with them are afraid of arrest,� DiRenzo says. �They don�t want to go to jail, so they leave these kids.�

It�s understandable to drown in the crushing grief that presses around you when you�ve lost a child, especially with the many questions surrounding Sal�s death. DiRenzo knew she couldn�t live that way.

�Because of the way he died, I needed answers. I needed to understand why�I just needed to do something,� DiRenzo remembers.

So she started making calls, without much of a goal in mind. She wanted to learn about recovery facilities and policies on state aid and why addicts were turned away from rehab programs.

Eventually DiRenzo came across the Drug Policy Alliance, a national organization that promotes �drug policies that are grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.� She quickly learned about the 911 Good Samaritan law and began a concerted effort to see it passed in New Jersey.

The two years between that call and the May 2 bill signing in Trenton were marked with incremental progress and disappointing setbacks. DiRenzo and Drug Policy Alliance representatives blanketed New Jersey seeking support for the bill. Many towns�including Gloucester Township, Voorhees, Princeton, Camden, Maple Shade and more�passed resolutions in support of the bill.

Step by step, DiRenzo�s work in Sal�s memory was on the cusp of paying off. The state Senate and Assembly overwhelmingly passed the bill with bipartisan support and all it needed was Christie�s signature.

And then:

�What I'm not willing to do is to give people who commit harms on other people a free pass just because they picked up a telephone and called,� Christie told a town hall audience in October 2012.

Finding a community and renewed focus

Christie�s veto shocked DiRenzo, who hadn�t expected it.

�This bill had nothing to do with giving a free pass to drug dealers,� DiRenzo says. �I don�t want a drug dealer not to go to jail. I know in my heart, kids are using drugs together. They�re not using with the drug dealer.�

DiRenzo had to dig deep, asking towns to support resolutions calling for a Legislature override. She leaned on her support network from Drug Policy Alliance and the online community that sprung up in support of the Good Samaritan bill. She especially drew resolve from her family, who threw their efforts behind passing the law, too.

Drug addiction can be lonely for the family. It�s still surrounded by a measure of shame and secrecy. The grief of losing someone is compounded by isolation that stems from addiction. DiRenzo and the many supporters of the 911 Good Samaritan law formed a community that embraced the anger, sadness and confusion about addressing a loved one�s addiction. There, those who died were more than their addiction.

�It�s why I fight so hard,� DiRenzo says. �Addiction doesn�t look like what you think it does. I�m seeing that now�the connection to families on Facebook shows me this touches all walks of life. I needed to fight to lift that stigma.�

Bittersweet victory, work left to do

Just as suddenly as the veto came the news: Christie and the Legislature reached a deal in April. The compromise left the meat of the bill intact, but clarified that drug traffickers are not protected by the measure. It also combined with separate legislation to increase access to naloxone, which counters opiate overdoses.

Christie then agreed to sign the Good Samaritan law.

DiRenzo traveled to Trenton for the May 2 bill signing. She met with Christie, whom she called gracious, and spoke at a press conference after the signing.

The big news of the day centered on an appearance by rocker Jon Bon Jovi at the signing�and seeing him was great, DiRenzo says. But her focus stayed on Sal.

�I was floating on air,� DiRenzo says. �It was probably the most��her voice catches��It was first time truly smiled or felt good since Sal�s passing.�

The Good Samaritan bill is law now, but DiRenzo�s work isn't finished. She�s on a mission to educate every person she can about the measure. From handing out fliers in Camden to addressing school assemblies and patients in rehab, DiRenzo will push and push until everyone knows about the Good Samaritan law.

�This whole mission was for Sal and his memory, but also be sure other parents don�t have to endure this pain,� DiRenzo says. �Call 911 if someone is overdosing. Save a life.�

To learn more about the Good Samaritan law or to connect with other families dealing with addiction, visit the NJ 911 Good Samaritan Bill group on Facebook.

Share a hydro, eat a homicide charge in return.

zystyl — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:05:49 GMT

Somonauk woman accused of drug-induced homicide

SYCAMORE � A 21-year-old Somonauk woman was charged May 10 with drug-induced homicide for allegedly providing the prescription drugs responsible for her friend�s accidental overdose.

Nicole Benson, of the 100 block of East Pine Street, Somonauk, gave her friend Kelsey I. McGuire, 19, of Leland, lethal amounts of hydrocodone and Xanax on March 10 or 11, DeKalb County Sheriff Chief Deputy Gary Dumdie said. Hydrocodone is an opiate painkiller, while Xanax commonly is used to treat panic and anxiety disorders.

Benson told police she had a prescription for Xanax but not the hydrocodone, so she also was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and unlawful possession of a controlled substance, Dumdie said. She allegedly had 14.4 grams of hydrocodone.

Benson remained in DeKalb County Jail, unable to post 10 percent of her $850,000 bail. The most serious charge she faces, drug-induced homicide, typically is punishable with between six and 30 years in prison; probation is not an option.

The two women visited Steak �n Shake in DeKalb; friends indicated they were partying after McGuire got off work about 10:30 p.m. March 10, Dumdie said. They slept at Benson�s house, and both woke up about 8 a.m. March 11, he said. They went back to sleep but Benson was unable to wake McGuire about 10:49 a.m. March 11, Dumdie said.

Shortly after McGuire�s death, Benson moved to Grapevine, Texas, to stay with her boyfriend. On Tuesday, DeKalb County Sheriff�s detectives went there to arrest her on the drug-possession charges. They escorted Benson back to DeKalb County on Thursday.

After reviewing the case with the DeKalb County State�s Attorney�s Office, Benson was charged with drug-induced homicide.

Her case comes just days after DeKalb police charged a 27-year-old DeKalb man with drug-induced homicide. Christopher T. Davis, formerly of the 800 block of West Hillcrest Drive, allegedly supplied heroin to Melissa Ramon, 33, DeKalb, who overdosed in a coin laundry bathroom March 5 and died three days later.

From: http://www.vfpnews.com/articles/2013...7057/index.xml

Number of Soldiers Seeking Opiate Abuse Treatment Skyrockets Read more: http://www.f

zystyl — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:03:16 GMT

From fox news, so expect a little bias:

The number of American soldiers seeking treatment for opiate abuse has skyrocketed over the past five years, at a time when the U.S. military has been surging forces into the heart of the world's leading opium producer.
Pentagon statistics obtained by FoxNews.com show that the number of Army soldiers enrolled in Substance Abuse Program counseling for opiates has soared nearly 500 percent -- from 89 in 2004 to 529 last year. The number showed a steady increase almost every year in that time frame -- but it leaped 50 percent last year when the U.S. began surging troops into Afghanistan. Army troop levels in Afghanistan went from 14,000 as of the end of 2004 to 46,400 as of the end of 2009.
The Army did not break down the opiate-use data to show how many of the soldiers had been deployed to Afghanistan or what specific opiates they were using; opiate drugs include morphine, codeine and heroin.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. Army spokesman, said the military has been monitoring the uptick and is "concerned about it." He said the numbers reflect use not only of heroin, but of prescription drugs, that the abuse may not be "directly correlated to previous deployments," and that the increase could reflect an increase in reporting abuse -- not just drug use itself.
But the abundance and accessibility of heroin in Afghanistan surely account for part of the jump, said Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, an Army Reserve officer who served in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2004.
Shaffer said heroin abuse had "started to get out of hand" when he was in the country. He said a "black market" existed where troops on U.S. bases would trade goods to local Afghans in exchange for heroin.
"It sounds like it kind of went way beyond that," he said after learning about the statistics. "It's inevitable. ... It's available. It's right there."
Shaffer, who now works with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, said the availability of the product combined with high stress levels from multiple tours of duty amounts to a dangerous mix that can lead to hard drug abuse.
As a potential measure of Army stress levels, suicides have steadily climbed in recent years. The Army reported there were 160 possible suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2009, up from 140 the year before.
The opiate-use statistics were first obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch, which requested them through a Freedom of Information Act inquiry and provided them to FoxNews.com. The Army confirmed the authenticity of the report.
Chris Farrell, director of investigation with Judicial Watch and a former Army intelligence officer, said he sought the data to see what kind of impact Afghanistan's locally produced drug supply may be having on U.S. troops.
"This whole situation detracts, obviously, from mission readiness," he said, noting that actual hard drug use is probably far higher than the numbers show. "It's a public interest issue."
David Rittgers, a former Special Forces officer who served in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2004, said he didn't see opiate abuse among U.S. forces while he was in the war zone, though it was "rampant" in the Afghan forces. But he said the abuse of drugs ranging from painkillers to heroin could also occur after soldiers return home from deployment and have trouble readjusting to life in the States.
"This is an outlet, just as alcohol abuse is an outlet," said Rittgers, who is a reserve JAG officer and clarified that he is not a Pentagon spokesman.
While the number of soldiers seeking treatment has risen dramatically, urinalysis drug tests in Afghanistan do not reflect the trend. According to the Army data, soldiers tested positive for heroin use just twice in the past three years.
Western forces have given mixed signals about how heavily they are targeting opium drug production in Afghanistan, a major source of funding for the Taliban. The DEA said last month that opium seizures rose 924 percent in 2009. But recent reports have said the military is focusing far more on fighting the Taliban than in cutting off the opium supply at the source.
While some say going after opium farming worsens relations between Western forces and the local population, others say eradication is critical.
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the former U.S. drug czar, said during a speech to the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers last year that the military risks exposing its troops to drug abuse problems if it doesn't destroy the opium crops.
"I'd be astonished if we don't see soldiers who find 10 kilograms of heroin and pack it up in a birthday cake and send it home to their mother with a note that says, 'Don't open this package until I'm home,'" he said, according to an article on the speech in the Palm Beach Post.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...#ixzz2TsB3pIsY

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)

Der Alte Krieger — Sat, 18 May 2013 20:05:52 GMT

I thought this site was interesting.

"
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is an international 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization of criminal justice professionals who bear personal witness to the wasteful futility and harms of our current drug policies.

Our experience on the front lines of the “war on drugs” has led us to call for a repeal of prohibition and its replacement with a tight system of legalized regulation, which will effectively cripple the violent cartels and street dealers who control the current illegal market."

http://www.leap.cc/

thank you propublica

hero 1 — Thu, 16 May 2013 01:30:55 GMT

D Sorry Peps i am doing this from my phone and my droid is smarter then me so i dont know how to hyper link.but propublica posted a great little tool where you can look and find what doctors are prescribing evils drugs to people on part d. I am to lazy right now to teather my computer to my phone
So if some one wants to pic up the ball and run with it just go to propublica and its all there.lots of love opies..

Good news in the War on Drugs

Der Alte Krieger — Thu, 16 May 2013 00:02:17 GMT

Good news in the War on Drugs:

"the Americans might finally have figured out, after 12 years of war, that it�s best to leave poppies alone."

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013...n-poppies/all/

Derek Boogaard, NHL player who died of overdose

TheTalkingAsshole — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:48:52 GMT

http://espn.go.com/espn/conversation...boogaard-death

In the fifth week of his second attempt at in-patient rehabilitation from a prescription pain pill addiction, Derek Boogaard told his counselors that he wanted to leave the treatment center to attend his sister's graduation, according to a timeline presented by his family's lawyers.

Worried about a relapse, his counselors were not happy with Boogaard's plan. He had resisted their efforts and refused to participate in some of their programs. The best thing they could say about Boogaard's time in treatment was that he was "indifferent" about his recovery. An NHL physician assigned to monitor Boogaard refused to approve the trip.

Ignoring their guidance, the 6-foot-7, 265-pound enforcer left the Authentic Rehabilitation Center (ARC) in Los Angeles and traveled to Minneapolis where he had been a fan favorite, where his addiction had begun, and where he had an apartment. From there, he and his family planned a few days later to go see his sister, Krysten, graduate from the University of Kansas. After detoxification and a period of near-total abstinence from the pills, known as "opioids," his level of tolerance for them had decreased significantly, according to experts consulted by ESPN.com.

Soon after he arrived in Minneapolis, Boogaard scored some Percocet and some Oxycodone, two of the opioids that, like Vicodin, produce an exquisite buzz for addicts. Like many addicts who return to opioids after a period of sobriety, the family believes Boogaard forgot about his lower tolerance and took his customary quantity in search of the desired high. It was a fatal error. He was found dead in his apartment less than 24 hours after his arrival in Minneapolis.

Boogaard's struggle with addiction to opioids and his death from an accidental overdose offer a look at the fastest growing addiction in the U.S. and at one of the nation's leading cause of accidental deaths. In 2010, the most recent year with complete statistics, drug overdose deaths killed more people than auto accidents in the U.S. More than 16,000 of these deaths were from opioid relapses and overdoses, compared to just over 4,000 in 1999. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which monitors health trends, classifies opioid addiction as an "epidemic" that, together with heroin (another opioid), has killed 125,000 Americans in the last decade.

The lawsuit filed Friday against the NHL and commissioner Gary Bettman describes what the family thinks happened in Boogaard's final days. In the filing and in court, the family's lawyers will provide detailed examinations of Boogaard's life, his addiction, his death and the roles and duties of the NHL, its drug program, and its physicians, in the tragic sequence of events that led to Boogaard's death in May 2011. Spokesman Frank Brown said the NHL would not comment on the lawsuit.

Filed in state court in Chicago by Corboy & Demetrio, one of the nation's leading personal-injury law firms, the lawsuit will give Boogaard's family members an opportunity to review and analyze what happened to their son and their brother as they face the challenge of placing the responsibility for his death on the league.

The league's misconduct, according to the lawsuit, includes providing Boogaard with excessive quantities of opioid painkillers and repeated failures to curb his addiction, and to help him find a way to sobriety.

Although the league will respond to the Boogaard family's claims with suggestions that Boogaard was personally responsible for his health and for his sobriety, the attorneys for the family have some powerful ammunition. They will show that team doctors and dentists failed to maintain proper records of the drugs they were prescribing, allowing Boogaard to move from therapeutic doses to recreational use of opioids

His first rehab attempt had been at The Canyon in Malibu, Calif., before the 2009-10 season. A year later, Boogaard signed with the New York Rangers. Like any recovering addict, he had been on a program of total abstinence from opioids and had discussed addiction issues with the team during the contract negotiations. But the Rangers' team physicians wrote 17 prescriptions for 366 pills after Boogaard fractured a tooth early in the season, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit suggests that the prescriptions were the result of a failure to maintain proper records on Boogaard and his history of addiction.

The doctors "should have known," according to the lawsuit, that Boogaard, as an enforcer who suffered more injuries than other players, had "an increased risk of developing addiction to prescription medications." He was especially vulnerable to pain and to addiction from the concussions and subconcussive hits on the head that are part of the life of the enforcer. The lawsuit lists the hundreds of pills that team physicians ordered for Boogaard during his seasons with the Wild and Rangers.

More powerful as a legal theory than improper medical records and what the doctors "should have known" is the family's reliance on a drug rehabilitation program that the NHL established before Boogaard entered the league yet failed to follow as his addiction grew into a serious problem.

The NHL established its "Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health" (SABH) program in September 1996 without input from the players' union. The four-stage program provides for increasing levels of supervision and suspensions without pay. Although Boogaard was enrolled in the program at the request of his family, the suit states, the league never enforced the suspensions that the SABH required.

As the result of multiple relapses, known as "slips" in the world of addiction and treatment, Boogaard should have been in Stage 3 with a six-month suspension without pay when he departed the ARC treatment center for the graduation. In the earlier stages, he should have been suspended during his time in rehab and would have been allowed to return to his team only with the approval of an NHL physician. Would a six-month suspension have made a difference? Would it have pushed Boogaard from his indifferent attitude toward sobriety into a more receptive frame of mind?

The league's adoption of SABH and its failure to follow the provisions that the league itself formulated give the Boogaard family powerful evidence to present to the jury that will decide whether the NHL is in any way responsible for Boogaard's death. Thomas Demetrio, who has produced some of the largest jury awards in Illinois history, will argue for the Boogaard family that once the league undertook to provide assistance for addiction, the league was obligated to do it correctly and in accordance with the league's own procedures.

Is the NHL responsible for the addiction and death of an enforcer who scored three goals and had 66 fights in 277 games? Will the league acknowledge even partial responsibility? The Boogaard family, frustrated and angry with the league's conduct, wants to know. The family is asking important questions in its lawsuit, questions that go beyond the NHL and its responsibilities. The answers to those questions might tell us something important about the epidemic of opioid-related deaths and what can be done about them.

Extremely potent painkiller hits Montreal black market- Montreal fent bust

opi8 — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:56:08 GMT

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montre...oxycodone.html

Extremely potent painkiller hits Montreal black market
Desmethyl fentanyl is 40 times more potent than heroin

An extremely powerful drug has made its first appearance on Montreal�s black market, and it�s being produced in sordid conditions by amateur chemists. In late April, Montreal police raided seven locations in Montreal, seizing more than 300,000 tablets of illegally-produced synthetic prescription drugs, including Viagra and Cialis.

�The fight against synthetic drugs is a priority for all of the province�s police forces,� said Cmdr. Francois Bleau at a Monday news conference.

The busts also yielded crystal meth, bath salts, methamphetamines, ecstasy, speed, steroids, oxycodone and 1,500 kilograms in untransformed ingredients � enough to produce three million pills. But police consider the presence of bromadol and desmethyl fentanyl to be particularly worrisome.

Mario Gu�rin, an assistant director for the Montreal police, said investigators found three kilograms of desmethyl fentanyl after they sent the seized pills to the lab for analysis. Fentanyl on its own is a powerful painkiller in the form of a patch that is usually prescribed to cancer patients and people suffering from chronic pain disorders. The desmethyl fentanyl is a derivative of it that has been chemically modified to be even more potent and is reported to be 40 times stronger than heroin and 80 times stronger than morphine. Montreal police said this is the first time they�ve come across desmethyl fentanyl on Montreal�s black market.

Potent drugs designed to attract young users
Public health officials have warned emergency room physicians about the drug, saying it's extremely potent. The seized desmethyl fentanyl was toxic enough to affect four police officers who were handling the drugs for analysis.

"Even though they were wearing masks and gloves, still by being in contact with the product, they suffered from mild injuries. One of them had to hospitalized because of a heart condition," said police Insp. Marc Riopel.

Many of the pills are stamped with copycat logos of companies like Facebook, Tim Hortons and the Montreal Canadiens. Bleau said the tactic is used to target young users.

Pills hidden inside microwaves
In addition to the pills, police seized 1,500 kilos of chemicals capable of producing 3 million pills.

Investigators said the pills were sold online and on the street. Some pills made it across the US border by being stashed inside microwaves.
Locations on in the city's Ville-Marie, Pointe St-Charles, Little Burgundy and Plateau-Mont-Royal districts were among those searched. Police said they found sophisticated equipment used to produce industrial quantities of drugs � one machine was capable of producing at least one pill per second.

Pregnancy helped young woman kick heroin

clinton — Mon, 13 May 2013 00:42:59 GMT

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articl...NEWS-305120339

KITTERY, Maine � The bond between a mother and her innocent baby girl is helping to pull a recovering heroin addict from the depths of "the devil's den."

Sam Roy, 22, a Hampton, N.H., native now living in Kittery, said she was an active heroin user when she discovered she was 4� months pregnant. She believes it was an act of God that led to her giving birth to a perfectly healthy and beautiful baby girl in late 2011.
"It was a surprise for sure, but she's no accident. I mean, she's the best thing that's ever happened to me," Roy said. "This girl's a miracle. I'm so blessed. I'm beyond blessed. ... Anything could have been wrong with her."

The American Pregnancy Association warns that heroin use during pregnancy increases the chance of premature birth, low birth weight, breathing difficulties, low blood sugar, bleeding within the brain and infant death. Heroin crosses the placenta to the baby and can result in the unborn baby becoming dependent on the drug.
Given that, it was a miracle to see her daughter happily running around her apartment, all smiles and laughter as her mother described the torture of trying to kick her opiate addiction. Roy has turned to God as she continues her recovery, and alluded to feeling a battle between good and evil raging inside her.

"You feel like you're dying when you're detoxing," she said. "I know this might be creepy, but I felt the devil scratching, like literally, my skin inside of me, like my flesh, ripping me apart. ... It was insanity. I really can't even � it was scary. It was so powerful. I never felt anything like that."
Roy has been clean for more than four months now, meaning her daughter's first year of life was spent immersed in the hell of the addictions of Roy and her boyfriend.
That boyfriend is now in jail and Roy said that, even though she cares about him, she knows she has to stay away from him once he is released. Complicating matters is the fact that he is the father of her child.
"He triggers me. Just his name, seeing him, it's a trigger," she said. "(He) and I are poison with one another."
Roy said it was her boyfriend who introduced her to heroin, albeit unintentionally. Despite a "fabulous childhood" in Hampton, by her teenage years family issues resulted in her having more freedom and she started experimenting with marijuana and alcohol. By the time she was 16, she said, she was introduced to cocaine.
"I'd party every night. I'd go to school drunk. I'd go to school high," she said. "I took full and complete advantage of (my freedom) every day."
When she was 19, she said her boyfriend passed out after using heroin. She and a friend, both intoxicated at the time, decided on a whim to try the heroin themselves, she said.

"I don't consider it like it began at heroin, because it began at pot, then moved to alcohol, then coke, then it moved to heroin," she said.
Roy described at first "dabbling" in the drug, while she was still working and going to school. Later, dabbling turned into driving to Lawrence, Mass., at least once a day and sometimes more to pick up heroin from her dealer.
"I knew something was going on, but I was just so, like, dazed and confused," she said. "I was just an adult. I was 19 and could pretty much make my own decisions. I actually hid it and kept it a secret and nobody found out."
Then her boyfriend was arrested and jailed for the first time. She said it was during that time that she was able to get sober and return to work and school full time. However, she said she again began "dabbling," this time with Percocet, a prescription opioid derived from the same source as heroin.
When her boyfriend got out of jail, Roy said, she believed he wanted to stay sober. It didn't happen, and their relationship proved to be entirely fueled by drugs and alcohol, she said.
"The first time I was addicted, I was just doing it because it was there. Then the second time I went around, it was like, it was evil. There was all sorts of evilness in it," she said. "I believe in God and I know that he's with me at all times and he's never left my side, but when I was doing that, that was the closest to hell I've ever been."
Despite feeling like her life was a living hell, Roy said she was unable to stop.
"Why couldn't I stop? Because I was addicted to the high," she said. "I was addicted to the rush. I was addicted to the feeling. I was addicted to going to Lawrence every day to pick up, to look for cops and make sure they're not following me. I was addicted to everything to do with heroin."

Although she was able to get clean when she found out she was pregnant, Roy said it didn't last long after her child's birth. She said she spent her tax return on heroin and then began taking her boyfriend's Suboxone, a prescription drug used to treat opiate addiction.
"That became a necessity. I needed it because I would be sick, because I frigging caught a habit, of course, which was so stupid of myself to do," she said.
Their lifestyle finally caught up with them on their daughter's first birthday. They were shoplifting to get money for drugs when they were caught and fled from police. With their daughter in their car, they sped to Massachusetts, where they planned to meet their dealer. But an officer pulled them over and arrested her boyfriend, she said.
Shortly thereafter, her family intervened, she detoxed, relapsed after two weeks, then detoxed again and went through rehab. She has been clean since.
"I love being sober. I don't have to be sick. I don't have to get up every day and find gas and find money to go to Lawrence to get high � not even to get high, to just feel normal and not sick. I don't have to feel that way anymore, at all," she said.
Roy has now set goals for herself and her baby. She is working and plans to return to school. Just three credits shy of earning an associate degree in business, she said she's also going to meetings and surrounding herself with family and other positive people.
"God gave me his grace and told me to do this and to fight for this," she said. "I'm so much of a better person not on (heroin). I literally got to the point where my insides were cold. I didn't pray. I didn't think about God. It's all about my daughter now."

What remains unclear is whether the father will be part of the picture.
"Does he want to build a better life? I don't know. Does he want to be a part of his daughter's life? Yes," she said. "Will he? I don't know."

more news on the bad batch of heroin in N Jersey-�Rocky�

clinton — Mon, 13 May 2013 00:33:44 GMT

http://www.nj.com/camden/index.ssf/2...in_linked.html

CAMDEN � Three more people were hospitalized last week for overdoses on a reportedly tainted batch of heroin purchased in Camden, bringing the total number of those exposed to the drug to six, according to officials.
Camden County Prosecutor's Office spokesman Jason Laughlin on Friday stated none of the cases have been fatal. Authorities are still waiting on laboratory results to ascertain what toxins were contained in the heroin.
According to Laughlin, tainted drugs making their way into the streets is a problem that occurs �from time to time.�
�What happens is that heroin is either too pure, or adulterated with something,� said Laughlin. �Unfortunately, all you can do is get the info out there, and let it reach the dealers, because they don�t want the extra pressure and they want customers to be able to come back.
�Of course the goal is to catch these people and charge them, and then track down the source.�
On May 4, the Camden County Prosecutor�s Office and the police department stated three people had overdosed on a batch of heroin circulating in Camden that may contain life-threatening toxins. They were taken to Cooper University Hospital.
The next day, three more were hospitalized after taking the drug.
Henry Schuitema, chief of emergency services at Kennedy Health System, said many of the tainted-drug overdoses he sees are the result of the victim taking a substance that is too pure, resulting in coma, respiratory depression and even cardiac arrest if �no one sees them collapse, and a lot of time goes by without treatment.�
�A lot of what we�re seeing tends to be the result of a super heroin, that�s much more potent than the person is used to, but they take the same amount that they�re used to,� said Schuitema. �We�ve been dealing with it for a long time, and part of it is that since it�s illegal, there are no regulations, so people don�t know what they�re taking until it�s too late.�
He later added: �It�s just another risk you take when you take drugs.�
Earlier this month, New Jersey Poison Control alerted hospitals and health care professionals about a new, more potent strand of heroin entering drug markets.

�It�s called �Rocky,� but I can�t say for sure what it contains,� said Schuitema.
However, Schuitema stated that in the past, high-potency heroin has been created by mixing it with Fentanyl, a powerful opiate.
�And when you include Fentanyl, it makes the heroin that much more potent,� he said.
Heroin overdoses are typically treated with Narcan, a drug that counters the effects of the overdose.

�But with the new batch, �Rocky,� they said it would take a high dose of Narcan to bring them out of it,� said Schuitema.
According to Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson, all six of those hospitalized last week in connection with the tainted heroin resided outside the city, but had entered Camden to purchase the drug.
Last week, the police announced a sweep in which 28 people were arrested for allegedly trying to buy drugs in Camden. Of those arrested 23 � or 82 percent � were residents of Camden�s suburbs.
�The suburban drug buyer continues to be the lifeblood of the city�s open air drug markets,� Thomson said at the time. �They are generally also responsible for the property and personal crimes in the neighborhoods from which they hail.�
On Friday, Thomson said officers in this kind of case interview patients, doctors and EMTs in order to determine a general location where the drugs were purchased.
However, the department has learned not to disclose that location after addicts have specifically sought out those places in the past.
�We learned that the hard way a decade ago with Fentanyl,� said Thomson. �People were dropping at an alarming rate.�
Still, the chief said it�s important to warn the public of tainted drugs whenever they turn up.
Said Thomson: �If it gets one person to stop, then it would be worth it.�

FDA to allow generic Oxymorphone to Continue

CaliMoon — Sat, 11 May 2013 21:57:02 GMT

Although I can't find the actual decision from the FDA website. Many articles around the web suggests that the FDA will continue to allow the sale of Oxymorphone ER generic. This is great news to wake up to for CPP's. :)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...974167180.html

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...,3337389.story

Man's bellybutton stuffed with heroin, border officers say

clinton — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:55:42 GMT

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/man-...c84d868ff.html

A Tucson man was arrested Tuesday after he tried to cross into Arizona with heroin wrapped around his waist and a small package of the drug tucked into his bellybutton, border officers said.
Calvin C. Howard III, 35, was crossing through the Morley pedestrian gate in Nogales when officers suspected he had drugs hidden under his clothes, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection news release.
Howard tried to run back into Mexico and struggled with border officers before being taken into custody, the release said.
Officers found about 2 pounds of heroin worth an estimated $30,000.
Howard was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations.

You're just an accident or surgery away from becoming a heroin addict

clinton — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:07:45 GMT

http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/you-...ng-hero/nXntw/

SEATTLE —
A drug problem is taking over Western Washington. If you think it doesn't affect you, think again. The DEA calls heroin public enemy number one, and it all starts with prescription painkillers.

You may find it hard to believe you’re just a surgery or accident away from a heroin addiction. But those who see it every day know its reality.
“It's the soccer moms, the high school athletes, everyone under the sun,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Matthew Barnes.

The path to heroin typically starts with an addiction to prescription painkillers, often from a surgery or accident. It’s cases like Josh Martin, a former UCLA football player, who spoke to KIRO 7 from a Chehalis jail cell. An injury ended his career and he became addicted to painkillers. Then, last year police say he threatened a man with a gun and smashed into a police cruiser following a chase. They found heroin in his car.

“I had everything in the world going for me,” said Martin. “I have a college degree. I played college football.”
Beattrice Gailey knows first-hand. She's a recovering heroin addict and now a counselor at Seadrunar Drug Rehab in Seattle.

“The only thing different between heroin and the pill is the form,” she said. “It wasn't about getting high, it's about staying well.”
It may sound strange but Dr. Russ Carlisle of the Swedish Emergency Department says the addiction makes you more sensitive to pain. So the more you take, the more you need. Prescription drugs and heroin offer the same high. Both are opiates.
“There is a big crossover we know now between prescription drug abuse to heroin use,” he said.

A Washington law that took effect in 2012 is playing a key role. It cracks down on doctor shopping for prescription painkillers by creating a statewide database. It’s a law Dr. Carlisle blames for the rise in heroin, but ultimately still supports.
Once you’re hooked on painkillers, and can't get them from a doctor, one pill will cost about $80 on the streets.

“For heroin it drops down to $10, $20, so there's a dramatic difference,” said Gailey.
Special Agent Barnes shared a disturbing personal story.
“I have kids in pretty good high schools now in the Seattle area, and they’re talking about heroin getting combined with marijuana and smoked on lunch breaks and everything else,” said Barnes.

In his day job Barnes is seeing heroin more and more saying demand dictates the supply. He calls heroin public enemy number 1 right now across Puget Sound. The DEA is seeing a big increase in heroin busts. A bust on March 13 netted more than 56 pounds of heroin from 14 locations.

Barnes says it's coming here from the drug cartels in Mexico. And the cartels are setting up drug cells right in your back yard.
“They weave their way right into middle class America” he said. “They tend not to do business where they live so they blend into their surroundings.”
Heroin is really taking off in ages 18-29 according to a leading drug researcher Caleb Banta-Green at the University of Washington. And heroin deaths are on the rise. Since 2009, prescription painkiller overdoses have dropped 32 percent, while heroin overdoses have jumped 71 percent. Ninety-eight people in King County died of overdose in 2012.
Of course you want to avoid that path so you should know you can quickly become addicted prescription painkillers.

“I've seen people have withdrawals in a couple weeks,” said Dr. Carlisle.
Here are signs of addiction to look out for in yourself or loved ones: you're going to feel uncomfortable, you may develop nausea, increased susceptibility to pain, develop intense craving.

Now that heroin use is spreading, doctors are encouraging everyone to know what to do if you encounter someone overdosing. STOPOVERDOSE.ORG has everything you need to know.

methadone phobia

clinton — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:56:59 GMT

http://www.londoncommunitynews.com/n...linic-phobia-/

Wharncliffe Road South will be home to the city�s latest methadone clinic, but the question remains on whether the city, or the applicant, are doing enough to ensure it doesn�t look one.
During the Tuesday (May 6) Planning and Environment Committee meeting, members heard from staff around points of contention between the city and the applicant for the methadone clinic, which will be located at 425 Wharncliffe Rd.
The proposed use of decorative armour stones was suggested by the project�s proponent, but was countered by staff and councillors who worried too attractive a setting could encourage loitering. Ironically, city staff is calling for more decorative wrought iron fencing to replace an existing chain length fence.
The final issue, one that caused quite a bit of confusion, was the inclusion of something called a clear throat entranceway. The clear throat style of entranceway � which was estimated at an additional cost of $20,000 � is designed to give vehicles space before leaving the parking area and pulling out onto Wharncliffe Road.
Alan Patton, a lawyer representing Ontario Addiction Treatment Centres, said he was concerned the city was proposing changes strictly because the property is going to be used to treat individuals with addiction problems. Patton even went so far as to call it �a phobia� when looking at how the city is framing the discussion of methadone treatment.
�My client says we would like to make the front of the building attractive, so one of the landscaping features is armour stone,� Patton said. �Staff�s response is 'oh my gosh, we can�t have armour stone because some people going for methadone treatment might sit on the armour stone.' Is that the level of phobia this city, this municipality has?�
While the armour stone was an esthetic issue supported by Patton and his client, the point turned when focus was put on staff�s contention the existing chain link fence is insufficient for the standards set out in council�s methadone clinic policy.
John Fleming, managing director planning, who played a key role in helping draft the policy, said he believes a different material, such as wrought iron, would be more appropriate in helping fit the clinic into the surrounding neighbourhood.
"I think we do have to be respectful of this commercial corridor,� Fleming said. �We have heard a lot from the community, the neighbourhood, the commercial owners in this area and something of that standard is much more in keeping with what we are trying to do."
Mayor Joe Fontana said aesthetics are important and that unfortunately too many people picture the problematic clinic on Dundas Street when someone mentions the words methadone treatment. Calling that clinic �a colossal failure,� Fontana said now is the time to set a high standard for the types of site plans that are accepted for methadone clinics.
Planning committee chair and Ward 1 Councillor Bud Polhill said he was concerned that while the city wants future methadone clinics to look as good as possible, it seems to be headed in the opposite direction.
�We don�t want the decorative stuff out front, we want a six-foot fence around it. We are doing everything we can to make this look like a methadone clinic and I am not sure that is what we want to do,� Polhill said. �There would be no other property on Wharncliffe Road with a six-foot wrought iron fence around it. It is going to stand out like a sore thumb.�
Ward 8 Councillor Paul Hubert supported that point saying the clinic should look attractive from the start. �It should look attractive, it shouldn�t look like an addiction treatment centre, it should look like a medical centre where people go to get help.�
The site plan now goes back to staff for further discussion with the applicant around changes to the aesthetics, fencing, entranceway and parking.

suboxone in atlanta

clinton — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:53:58 GMT

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local...ictions/nXmxs/

ATLANTA �
Trading one addiction for another is how some drug addicts and counselors describe a popular treatment for curing addiction to pain pills and heroin.

The drug, which comes in the form of a pill and a strip that you place under your tongue, is called Suboxone.

It's been praised by addiction experts as an effective way to wean addicts off opiates. But critics have said the drug is over-prescribed and abused, and can lead to dependence and relapse.

Addiction to heroin and prescription opiates, like Oxycontin, is soaring in Georgia and across the country. At one time, Methadone was a leading drug replacement therapy, but carried the risk of deadly overdose.

Now a synthetic opiate, Buprenorphine, also known as Suboxone, is widely prescribed to wean addicts from opiates.

But two recovering drug addicts who didn't want to reveal their names told Channel 2's Tom Regan it did just the opposite.

"Did you find you were getting addicted to the Suboxone?" Regan asked one of the women.

"I did, and eventually it was just, the Suboxone wasn't enough for me anymore. I still craved the high. So I actually went out and started doing the pain pills I was doing before I got on the Suboxone," she told Regan

"I was completely dependent on it," the other recovering drug addict told Regan. "And I still wanted my drug, I still wanted to be doing Oxycontin and heroin."

The two women are now at Willingway Hospital, an assistance-based addiction treatment center in Statesboro, Ga.

The facility has treated hundreds of patients for Suboxone dependency. The women told Regan prior attempts at getting clean and sober with Suboxone backfired. They repeatedly relapsed and even sold Suboxone prescriptions on the street.

"When I just wanted my drug of choice, I would sell them all and keep going to the doctor," one of the women told Regan.

The market for Suboxone is booming. The drug has produced over $1.3 billion in sales and is growing by an estimated 10 percent a year, more than Viagra. It has an inhibiting agent that is supposed to minimize risk of abuse.

"I like it. It's a miracle drug. It works better than anything for narcotic dependence," said Dave Davis, director of psychiatry at Piedmont Hospital, who has been an outspoken advocate of Suboxone.

He told Regan he has prescribed Suboxone to dozens of his patients along with traditional drug counseling.

"Suboxone stops their craving, they have no reason to get high. As a matter of fact, if you're on Suboxone and you go out and shoot heroin you don't get high," Davis told Regan.

But Dr. Steven Lynn, the director of adult addiction at abstinence-based Ridgeway Institute in Smyrna, Ga. believes extended use of Suboxone creates more problems than it solves for most opiate addicts.

"It is a drug of abuse. It has been abused widely," Lynn told Regan. "People don't take a pill and get abstinent from drugs. That never works for addiction. The underlying addiction must be treated."

Despite the controversy over using synthetic opiates to treat drug addiction, the Federal Drug Administration recently approved the sale of generic versions of Suboxone.

It seems to be a drug hailed a miracle by some addicts, a curse by others.

"That's exactly what it is. It's trading one drug for another," one of the recovering drug addicts told Regan.

Regan contacted the drug company that makes Suboxone. They sent him a statement which said, in part, "Suboxone is a trusted and proven treatment for opiate dependence. The company designed the drug to discourage misuse and abuse and Suboxone should be used as part of a complete treatment plan that includes counseling."

�Vaccine� against heroin keeps it out of the brain

zystyl — Thu, 09 May 2013 19:29:42 GMT

Addicted rats are less likely to relapse

Under normal circumstances, antibodies recognize things that (in molecular terms) are big, like parts of bacteria and viruses that invade our bodies. That's largely because of the way that antibodies are selected for during an immune response. But by playing a bit of a trick on the immune system, it's possible to generate antibodies that attach to smaller molecules, ones that contain only a few dozen atoms. This has been used to do things like create antibodies that act like catalysts for chemical reactions.

The ability to create antibodies that specifically bind to small molecules has raised hopes that they'll prove useful for a very challenging medical problem, namely drug addiction. Antibodies that latch on to drugs could keep them away from their sites of action in the brain, blocking any rewarding high. So far, the results haven't been as promising as the idea, but a new vaccine against heroin appears to do better specifically because it's designed to work with how the drug is processed by the body.

The immune system is able to produce many antibodies that recognize the pathogens it is currently facing for a simple reason: antibody-producing cells can sense when their antibodies are sticking to something. This process works because these cells stick a lot of antibodies on their surface. When they stick to an invader like a virus, it creates a cluster of antibodies in the same area on the cell's surface, all of them stuck to a single virus. This clustering is enough to trigger a signal that tells the cell that its antibody is working.

Small molecules can't do that. Since they're small, only one antibody can stick to them at a time, so there's no clustering, and the cells that produce the relevant antibody remain quiet. (Immunologists, please forgive me for the simplifications I made there.)

The trick to avoiding this is to link lots of the same molecule to the surface of a big protein. Multiple molecules linked to the same protein get recognized by antibodies, which now cluster as a result. A lot of antibodies get made.

Researchers who tried this process with heroin, shown above, tended to hook it up so that the complex, three-dimensional part of the structure that's off on the right was accessible. Since it's chemically distinctive, it should be easy to generate antibodies that are specific to it. So researchers hooked up the heroin to a protein using one of the sites at left, where two CH3's hang off the molecule (these, plus the neighboring oxygens, constitute an "acetyl group"). The antibodies were generated; it's just that they weren't especially effective. A slight increase in the dose of heroin, and the antibodies were swamped.

Looking at the biology of heroin, however, a team from the Scripps Institute figured out they were going about it wrong. Normally, in a matter of minutes, the body starts removing the two acetyl groups anyway. When both are gone, the result is morphine, which is the active form of the drug. It's thought that the full heroin molecule crosses into the brain before being converted into morphine.

The researchers hooked the drug up to a protein using a bond near the three-dimensional part, keeping both of the acetyl groups accessible. In their terminology, the vaccine was "dynamic" in that it would undergo all the chemical transformations that heroin does, allowing antibodies to be generated to each of the intermediate molecules.

This approach seemed to do the trick. By various assays, it appears that more of the heroin is retained in the blood rather than transiting into the brain. Rats needed a much higher dose of heroin—over six times higher—to feel its pain-numbing effects, and antibodies generated to morphine alone were much less effective.

The most intriguing test, however, involved rats that had been allowed to self-dose with heroin, which was accompanied by a blinking light. After an extended withdrawal, the rats would go right back to self-medicating if they were given a single dose of heroin or shown the blinking light. Once they were treated to raise the dynamic antibodies, however, the dose of heroin would no longer set off a bout of drug-taking (though the blinking light still would). The antibodies appeared to block the drug efficiently enough that it no longer registered in the brains of these rats.

This isn't an easy or simple solution. Vaccinating the rats required three doses within a month, and the rats still could get a hit off the drug—it just took a lot more of it. In human societies, addicts requiring a lot more of a drug can be a recipe for serious problems. But for those enrolled in supervised treatment programs, it could make a significant difference in keeping a momentary lapse from becoming a full relapse.

From: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/...-of-the-brain/

And more here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/05/02/1219159110

Heroin addiction, a chronic relapsing disorder characterized by excessive drug taking and seeking, requires constant psychotherapeutic and pharmacotherapeutic interventions to minimize the potential for further abuse. Vaccine strategies against many drugs of abuse are being developed that generate antibodies that bind drug in the bloodstream, preventing entry into the brain and nullifying psychoactivity. However, this strategy is complicated by heroin’s rapid metabolism to 6-acetylmorphine and morphine. We recently developed a “dynamic” vaccine that creates antibodies against heroin and its psychoactive metabolites by presenting multihaptenic structures to the immune system that match heroin’s metabolism. The current study presents evidence of effective and continuous sequestration of brain-permeable constituents of heroin in the bloodstream following vaccination. The result is efficient blockade of heroin activity in treated rats, preventing various features of drugs of abuse: heroin reward, drug-induced reinstatement of drug seeking, and reescalation of compulsive heroin self-administration following abstinence in dependent rats. The dynamic vaccine shows the capability to significantly devalue the reinforcing and motivating properties of heroin, even in subjects with a history of dependence. In addition, targeting a less brain-permeable downstream metabolite, morphine, is insufficient to prevent heroin-induced activity in these models, suggesting that heroin and 6-acetylmorphine are critical players in heroin’s psychoactivity. Because the heroin vaccine does not target opioid receptors or common opioid pharmacotherapeutics, it can be used in conjunction with available treatment options. Thus, our vaccine represents a promising adjunct therapy for heroin addiction, providing continuous heroin antagonism, requiring minimal medical monitoring and patient compliance.

"Subu Must Die How a nation of junkies went cold turkey" BY GRAEME WOOD

la somnambule — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:26:10 GMT

Inneresting article in the most recent New Republic (May 7, 2013). Re subutex in Georgia (as in Soviet Georgia) check it:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1...ddiction-ended

cleaning lady steals vicodin

clinton — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:30:38 GMT

http://www.telegram.com/article/2013...105079974/1116

MILLBURY � A cleaning lady was arrested Monday for allegedly stealing Vicodin pills from one of her clients.

Kathleen Cumming, 47, of 24 Mortimer Road, Sterling, is charged with five counts of breaking and entering in the daytime with the intent to commit a felony, five counts of larceny of a drug (Vicodin), and five counts of possession of Vicodin. She is expected to be arraigned today in Worcester District Court.

Officer Andrea Warpula said police fear that Ms. Cumming, who is self-employed, might have been stealing pills from other clients.

�This lady has been cleaning their house for a very long time,� Officer Warpula said, referring to the Millbury incident. �Around early April, they started realizing that the homeowner�s girlfriend was missing some Vicodin pills out of her pill bottle.�

The homeowner, who lives on Wheelock Avenue, set up a camera in the bedroom area where the Vicodin pills are kept. There were no signs that anything, other than the pills, were being taken from the house, Officer Warpula said.

�They set up a sting this morning (Monday morning). Because she (Ms. Cumming) hasn�t been there for a little while, they expected that she would show up,� Officer Warpula said. �They counted the pills. The detective and the homeowner left them where they normally are, left the house and the detective set up surveillance.�

At 10:30 a.m. Monday, Ms. Cumming pulled into the home�s driveway, let herself into the home and came out a few seconds later, Officer Warpula said.

Police Detective Nicholas Fortunato stopped her and found Ms. Cumming had 21 pills in her front pocket, Officer Warpula said.

Anyone with information that might help in the case is asked to call Detective Fortunato at (508) 865-3521.

Contact Craig S. Semon at csemon@telegram.com