International Overdose Day 2018 — Prevent Don’t Promote
This day of acknowledgement and focus around illicit drug overdose issues, should be — must be — about the prevention, repair and/or cessation of all that leads to an overdose episode, not merely the survival of it! …
It is important to reiterate that, a very real danger of this emerging narrative, is that it only entrenches victimhood and habit in unaccountable modes, ensuring personal agency and capacity are further deprived from the self, family and community harming individual! …
Trauma must be properly defined, properly managed and recovery from cause and symptom inexorably perused with best-practice mechanisms at all levels. Best-practice that precludes all self-medicating/harming processes, as they are all counterproductive in the restorative journey…
It’s also important to delineate between uptake of Heroin and the uptake of other illicit drugs. Our organisations connections in the sector have revealed that the majority of those ‘engaging’ directly with heroin were those who had suffered sexual abuse of some kind, particularly when young. However, we must be careful not to fall for the emotional overcategorization of triggers, prompts and ‘incentives’ for the far wider uptake of illicit drugs.
For complete article go to International Overdose Awareness Day 2018
Fight Drug Abuse, Don’t Subsidize It
Americans struggling with addiction need treatment and reduced access to deadly drugs. They do not need a taxpayer-sponsored haven to shoot up.
Almost 64,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2016, a shocking 54 percent increase since 2012. Dangerous opioids such as heroin and fentanyl contributed to two-thirds of the deaths. This killer knows no geographic, socioeconomic or age limits. It strikes city dwellers and Midwestern farmers, Hollywood celebrities and homeless veterans, grandparents and teenagers.
Remarkably, law enforcement efforts actually declined while deaths were on the rise. Federal drug prosecutions fell by 23 percent from 2011 to 2016, and the median drug sentence doled out to drug traffickers decreased by 20 percent from 2009 to 2016.
The Trump administration is working to reverse those trends. Prosecutions of drug traffickers are on the rise, and the surge in overdose deaths is slowing.
Unfortunately, some cities and counties are considering sponsoring centers where drug users can abuse dangerous illegal drugs with government help. Advocates euphemistically call them “safe injection sites,” but they are very dangerous and would only make the opioid crisis worse.
These centers would be modeled on those operating in Canada and some European countries. They invite visitors to use heroin, fentanyl and other deadly drugs without fear of arrest. The policy is “B.Y.O.D.” – bring your own drugs – but staff members help people abuse drugs by providing needles and stand ready to resuscitate addicts who overdose.
Aug. 27, 2018 By Rod J. Rosenstein — deputy attorney general of the United States. For complete article go to New York Times Opinion — Shooting Galleries