Surviving an opioid overdose may soon depend on where you live

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Drug overdose deaths in the United States rose 21 percent from 2015 to 2016...

US to Award $59 Million for Opioid Addiction Treatment
September 22, 2017 - The U.S. Justice Department has announced it is putting nearly $59 million toward fighting the epidemic of opioid drug addiction.

In a news release Friday, the department cited preliminary figures from the National Center for Health Statistics showing that drug overdose deaths in the United States rose 21 percent from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, a record high of around 65,000 people died from drug overdoses, driven by the opioid crisis. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new figures Thursday, blaming opioid painkiller addiction for the rise. The 2016 estimate "would be the highest drug death toll and the fastest increase in that death toll in American history," Sessions said. "And every day this crisis continues to grow, as more than 5,000 Americans abuse painkillers for the first time [daily]."

Opioids such as heroin and the synthetic drug fentanyl were responsible for most of the fatal overdoses, killing more than 33,000 Americans — quadruple the number from 20 years ago. The Justice Department said about $24 million in federal grants would be awarded to 50 cities, counties and public health departments for creation of "comprehensive diversion and alternatives to incarceration programs" for people impacted by the epidemic. An additional $3.1 million will be awarded by the National Institute of Justice for research and evaluation on drugs and crime, prioritizing heroin and other opioids and synthetic drugs.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions makes a statement at the Justice Department in Washington

Also, $22 million is being awarded to 53 jurisdictions to support implementation of adult drug courts and veterans' services. And $9.5 million is going to juvenile and family treatment to "build effective family drug treatment courts and ensure current juvenile drug treatment courts follow established guidelines." In March, U.S. President Donald Trump named New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former presidential candidate, to head the newly formed President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.

Last month, the commission urged the administration to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency. "With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks," the commission said in an interim report. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that no declaration was necessary to combat the crisis, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said Trump was taking the idea "absolutely seriously."

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-award-m...t/4040809.html

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Expose' was on 60 Minutes last night...

Trump drug czar nominee accused of hindering opioid crackdown
Mon, 16 Oct 2017 - The lawmaker whose state is ravaged by painkiller abuse is accused of being a drug industry stooge.

US President Donald Trump's nominee for drug czar is accused of helping relax enforcement on pharmaceutical firms blamed for fuelling the opioid crisis. Pennsylvania congressman Tom Marino pushed a bill that reportedly stripped a government agency of the ability to freeze suspicious painkiller shipments. His co-sponsor on the act was Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Both their states have been ravaged by opioids. Experts estimate the drugs could kill 500,000 Americans in the next decade.

Mr Marino has not responded to requests for comment on the report

Deadly addiction to opioids - a class of drug covering everything from legal painkillers to heroin - has been described as America's biggest public health crisis since the spread of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. President Trump was pressed on Monday about the allegations surrounding his drug czar nominee that were detailed in an expose by the Washington Post and CBS News' 60 Minutes programme.

During a press conference at the White House, Mr Trump told reporters he took the journalistic investigation "very seriously". "We're gonna be looking into Tom [Marino]," he told reporters from the Rose Garden. "He's a great guy. I did see the report. We're gonna look into the report." Mr Trump also said he would formally declare a national opioid emergency next week, as he pledged to do more than two months ago. Mr Marino and Ms Blackburn, both Republicans, helped force out an official at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who was taking on the drug firms, report the Post and 60 Minutes.

Marsha Blackburn (L) and Tom Marino co-authored "industry-friendly" legislation, according to the investigation

According to the investigation, they also introduced and lobbied for an "industry-friendly" bill called the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act. A DEA whistleblower said the legislation made it harder for the agency to prevent distributors from shipping pills to rogue pharmacies and corrupt doctors around the US. The so-called suspension orders - which the DEA slaps on suspicious shipments - have not been issued for at least two years, according to the report.

A murky mess

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Naltrexone — marketed as Vivitrol — blocks the effects of opioids...

Two Medications Show Promise in Treating Opioid Addiction
November 28, 2017 - The United States is suffering through an unprecedented wave of opioid and prescription drug abuse. An estimated 2.5 million people are addicted to prescription opioids or heroin, and on average 91 people per day die from an opioid-related overdose.

A new study comparing two of the top medications for treating addiction found they were equally safe and effective in curtailing opioid use, relapse, treatment dropout and overdose. The most commonly prescribed treatment is buprenorphine-naloxone, often administered to treat a narcotic overdose in an emergency situation. The problem is that it has opioid-like effects and holds the potential for abuse. In contrast, the drug naltrexone — marketed as Vivitrol — blocks the effects of opioids. But patients must be completely off opiates to start taking it.

Joshua Lee, at New York University’s School of Medicine, said the two drugs are used in very different ways. "Naltrexone is an opioid blocker, and so it's used after people have gotten off opiates ... and then want to maintain in an opiate-free state, using naltrexone to help them," he said. "Buprenorphine is used in more of a maintenance model where people switch without fully detoxing from a unhealthy opioid — say, heroin — to buprenorphine, which can be taken on a daily basis and then maintained for months and months in terms of long-term recovery." Lee and his colleagues led a study to compare the two therapies.

A group of 570 opioid-dependent adults who were still trying to kick their heroin habits in detox were given either a daily oral dose of buprenorphine while in treatment, or six monthly injections of naltrexone after completing treatment. Results showed that both therapies worked with about the same effectiveness. "Over the course of six months, about the same amount of people that had started did OK in terms of avoiding opiate relapse and kind of surviving on treatment, doing reasonably well in terms of traditional outpatient opiate treatment goals," Lee said.

One caveat: Twenty-five percent of the people scheduled to take naltrexone weren't able to complete detoxification, so they weren't able to get the shots, while only 6 percent of members in the other study group were unable to start their daily doses of buprenorphine. The researchers hope their finding that the medications were equally safe and effective encourages clinics to expand their treatment offerings — and save lives.

https://www.voanews.com/a/two-medica...n/4140743.html