Yes, you should read Lawrence Wright's Scientology article. This too: The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War By Jennifer Senior •...20 percent of the soldiers who’ve deployed in this war report symptoms of post-traumatic stress and major depression.The number climbs to almost 30 percent if the soldiers have deployed more than twice....
So grim is the problem that this summer, the Army released a remarkably candid suicide report. “If we include accidental death, which frequently is the result of high-risk behavior (e.g., drinking and driving, drug overdose),” it concluded, “we find that less young men and women die in combat than die by their own actions. Simply stated, we are often more dangerous to ourselves than the enemy.”
In other words, nearly as many soldiers are dying at home today as are dying abroad.
...
In fact, this residential facility that Chiarelli is visiting is different. It treats alcohol and substance abuse, PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, depression, and pain management all under one roof. Stephen N. Xenakis, a psychiatrist and former commander at Eisenhower, was an early proponent of this kind of integrated program. Like many doctors, he believes that one of American medicine’s greatest failings is its fragmentation into narrow-caliber silos, with doctors seeing ailments solely in the context of their own specialties. No population, says Xenakis, suffers more outrageously from this structural deficiency than returning soldiers. Doctors seldom take the totality of their extraordinary experiences into account. “Soldiers are in an environment that has dust particles and toxins we don’t even recognize,” Xenakis tells me. “There are pressure waves and blasts. They’re carrying packs, at altitude, that weigh 90 pounds. They’re in a different sleep cycle than normal. They’re in situations that are almost always stressful, if not traumatic.” Yet when they return home, he says, they’re shunted into all those individual silos, with each specialist seeing only what he or she is trained to see: A headache. Insomnia. Paranoia and irritability. A ruined knee. “So as doctors,” Xenakis continues, “we say, ‘Okay. We’re going to track this psychological problem, and we’re going to track this immunological problem, and we’re going to track their headaches and their musculoskeletal pain and their insomnia.’ ” He slowly breathes out. Though he retired in 1998, Xenakis has been urging the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to consider integrated medicine for quite some time. “When in fact it’s a system problem we’re dealing with,” he says. “And that’s how you get this poly-drug problem.”...•
This is the same man whose first 3 months as police chief focused on jailing drug addicts and blowing the sherriff's budget out of the water.George Gascón plans volunteer community courtsPhillip Matier & Andrew Ross..."'In many cases, we are criminalizing people we don't need to,' Gascón said, adding that the current system is financially 'unsustainable.'"...
At least 30% of the almost 6000 people living with HIV in Newark, NJ contracted it through injection drug use. Drug treatment and pharmacy syringe sales are both important. One does not obviate the other. N.J. Senate panel passes bill allowing over-the-counter sale of syringes to combat HIV, hepatitisBy Susan K. Livio..."Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), who was an outspoken opponent of the needle exchange program, voted no on this bill. He argued that making it easier for drug addicts to use doesn’t help them or their communities.
'You’ve got the needles, now come here and fight for drug treatment,’ Rice told his colleagues and other supporters of the bill. 'That’s what you should be doing.'’’
Yesterday:The little dog who was left to die in a snowstorm "OK folks, I know this is a long shot, but here goes…
This morning, as a buddy of mine drove to work via the Williamsburg Bridge, he noticed something: a small gray dog chained to the pedestrian walkway, shivering, completely drenched and half-frozen. As you probably heard, New York had a very big snow storm last night; we’re almost certain her owners left her out in it overnight to die."
Today:She Found A New Home!!"My girlfriend and I just got back from dropping off our unexpected pal to her new home with a very warm and loving married couple, who I have no doubt will make amazing, responsible, and caring owners. You’ll just have to trust me when I say: this dog is going to have a great, great life. Her new owners have promised to send some pictures as soon as she gets acclimated, which I will post here." ....
Portugal's drug policy pays off; US eyes lessonsBy Barry Hatton ....San Francisco's drug court saves the city $14,297 per offender, officials said. Expanding drug courts to all 1.5 million drug offenders in the U.S. would cost more than $13 billion annually, but would return more than $40 billion, according to a study by John Roman, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center....
"People readily, if perhaps with a sheepish smile, can admit they are addicted to their morning cup of coffee without the least fear that their morality, sanity, or competence will be questioned or that they might face criminal charges and a potentially long prison sentence.
In the nineteenth century, the same was true of heroin or cocaine addiction. All of this changed early in the twentieth century as a push for criminalization gained momentum" (Singer 2006: p55).
An Enlightened Exchange in Iranby Tina Rosenberg This is a story about a courageous policy in an unexpected place. In this place homeless shelters have vending machines selling clean syringes for injecting drugs. Drug users are not prosecuted as long as they are in treatment programs. Drug addicts are given clean needles and methadone maintenance therapy ─ available on a widespread basis even in prison. These tactics have worked to reduce crime, lower H.I.V. rates among drug users and keep AIDS from spreading out into the general population. The place is not Amsterdam. It is Tehran....
follow-up piece: How Iran Derailed a Health Crisis So how did Iran do it? How did a conservative theocracy decide to deal with its drug addicts as if it were Canada?... The science behind harm reduction is solid ─ but the politics are acutely dangerous.....
when do we start imprisoning drug manufacturers? Prescription opiates are responsible for an increasing proportion of overdose deaths, so they are next, right?
oh.
wait. Des Moines man sentenced in heroin death DES MOINES, Iowa —Federal prosecutors say a Des Moines man has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for his role in the heroin death of another person.
Federal officials said Tuesday that Shawn Sweeney appeared last week before a federal judge and was sentenced to 188 months in prison after pleading guilty to distributing heroin. He also was given three years of supervised release and must pay $100 to a crime victims' fund.
Prosecutors say Sweeney distributed heroin to another man who distributed to an individual who died Jan. 24, 2009, in Ames after ingesting the drug.
To reiterate, these programs are unjust, unconstitutional, and, wait for it, enormously expensive. yeah, phenomenally thorough thinking on all fronts. SC prisons brace for lawsuit over inmates with HIVBy Meg Kinnard
September 21, 2010COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina prison officials say they have no plans to stop segregating HIV-positive inmates despite the threat of a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department.
The state faces a Wednesday deadline to change the practice, which prison officials say is best for inmates and prison employees.
All state prisons "are safer from a public health perspective and a security perspective as a direct result of this program," Corrections Department attorney David Tatarsky wrote in an August response to the Department of Justice.
More than 400 HIV-positive inmates are housed together at maximum security prisons in Columbia, including some who would not usually be in such high-security facilities. Infected prisoners attend activities with other inmates, including work, school and faith-based programs, but eat and sleep separately.
"Many inmates with HIV suffer disparate treatment from other similarly situated inmates without HIV," the department wrote to South Carolina officials in June, when it gave them three months to make changes.
Alabama, which has 250 HIV-positive inmates, is the only other state that segregates them. Both were criticized in a report issued earlier this year by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, which said officials should house all inmates together and give prisoners condoms and syringes to slow the spread of AIDS.
The report argued that HIV-positive inmates don't have access to the same programs and jobs as other prisoners and are wrongly stigmatized. They are also prevented from participating in work-release programs, meaning they can't earn credits to shorten their sentences.
"That inevitably means that they serve longer sentences and are essentially being warehoused for no reason other than a medical condition," Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU's National Prison Project, said Tuesday.
Corrections officials have offered a compromise that would also allow infected inmates to attend work-release programs, but Director Jon Ozmint has said DOJ shot down that proposal.
In the mid-1980s, 46 of the nation's 51 prison systems housed HIV-positive prisoners separately from the general population, but most have since stopped. Most recently, Mississippi stopped segregating its 152 HIV-positive inmates in May, sending them to prisons around the state.
The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Alabama officials said they have not been threatened with a lawsuit. South Carolina prison officials were not available for comment Tuesday, but said in an Aug. 20 response to the DOJ that they do not intend to change their policy."
