MAP Drugnews

capebretonpost.com (US) Cannabis company Aphria expands to South America, Jamaica with acquisition ! Business ! Cape Breton Post Cannabis company Aphria expands to South America, J... (Wed Jul 18 02:06:14 2018 PDT)

capebretonpost.com (US) Cannabis company Aphria expands to South America, Jamaica with acquisition ! Business ! Cape Breton Post Cannabis company Aphria expands to South America, J... (Wed Jul 18 02:06:14 2018 PDT) [$drug_related(100%), $drugwar_propaganda(70%), $propaganda_theme2(70%), $propaganda_theme3(50%), $propaganda_theme5(70%), $illegal_drugs(100%), $plants(100%), $intoxicant(100%), $medical_cannabis(100%), $cannabis(100%), $cannabis_industry(85%), $youth(70%)]

Baltimore Sun, 18 Jul 2018 - HIS SON NEARLY DIED OF AN OVERDOSE One of the nation's top public-health officials has explained why the fight against the opioid epidemic is so personal to him. At a conference in New Orleans, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield Jr. opened up about his family's experience with opioids, saying that one of his adult children nearly died of an overdose of cocaine mixed with fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that is 30 to 50 times stronger than heroin, according to the Associated Press.

Jamaica Observer
How would you like your cannabis?
Jamaica Observer
Cannabis is so much more than that puff of smoke in the air. Recently, there have been several new and emerging methods of consuming cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes that are more convenient and allow users more discretion. With the ...

The Guardian
Budding business: how cannabis could transform Lebanon
The Guardian
The town is home to some of Lebanon's most powerful cannabis-growing families, who cultivate their crop openly in the fields nearby and possess a vast arsenal of weapons that has put them out of the reach of the law. Over the years, it has gained a ...

Cincinnati.com
Ohio's medical marijuana patient registry put on hold
Cincinnati.com
A man holding a lit cannabis joint in his outstretched fingertips. (Photo: ... The launch of Ohio's medical marijuana patient registry has been put on hold because of unexpected delays in bringing Ohio's newest treatment to market, according to state ...

and more »

Toronto Star
Medical marijuana users worry Canada's pot-impaired driving rules will run them off the road
Toronto Star
EDMONTON—Medical marijuana users worry they won't be able to get behind the wheel once cannabis is legalized for recreational use. Under the federal government's new impaired-driving rules, a motorist can be fined up to $1,000 for having two to five ...

The San Luis Obispo Tribune
The wait is over — you can now buy recreational marijuana in Grover Beach
The San Luis Obispo Tribune
San Luis Obispo may have been the county's first city to vote to allow adult-use cannabis businesses, but Grover Beach beat it to the punch on actual implementation. People can now walk into a store to buy recreational marijuana in the South County city.

Globalnews.ca
Raided marijuana dispensary with Okanagan connections back up and running
Globalnews.ca
With the growing demand for medical marijuana, and as the October 17 date for legalization in Canada approaches, it would appear that everyone is getting into the business, including a former federal politician from Kelowna and a First Nations chief ...

Ottawa Citizen
Health Canada warns cannabis companies against sponsoring music festivals and promoting pot
Ottawa Citizen
Health Canada has issued a warning to cannabis companies that are sponsoring music festivals and promoting their brands as Canada heads closer to the legalization of recreational marijuana this fall. Companies that break regulations against advertising ...
Restrictions On Packaging & Branding Could Hamper Canadian Cannabis Producer Canopy Growth's SalesForbes
US Border Officials Might Already Know All About Your Cannabis UseHuffPost Canada
Marijuana Stocks: Tilray Set To Become First U.S. Marijuana IPOInvestor's Business Daily
Vox -North Bay Business Journal -Montreal Gazette -Politico
all 113 news articles »

That's what the Dutch do, and it's working.

With Ohio beset by a massive public health around opioid use and overdoses—more than 4,000 Ohioans died of opioid overdoses in 2016—the Cleveland Plain Dealer sent travel editor Susan Glaser to Amsterdam in search of innovative approaches to the problem. While there, she rediscovered Holland's long-standing, radical, and highly effective response to heroin addiction and properly asked whether it might be applied to good effect here.

The difference in drug-related death rates between the two countries is staggering. In the U.S., the drug overdose death rate is 245 per million, nearly twice the rate of its nearest competitor, Sweden, which came in second with 124 per million. But in Holland, the number is a vanishingly small 11 per million. In other words, Americans are more than 20 times more likely to die of drug overdoses than the Dutch.

For Plain Dealer readers, the figures that really hit home are the number of state overdose deaths compared to Holland. Ohio, with just under 12 million people, saw 4,050 drug overdose deaths in 2016; the Netherlands, with 17 million people, saw only 235.

What's the difference? The Dutch government provides free heroin to several score hardcore heroin addicts and has been doing so for the past 20 years. Public health experts there say that in addition to lowering crime rates and improving the quality of life for users, the program is one reason overdose death rates there are so low. And the model could be applied here, said Amsterdam heroin clinic operator Ellen van den Hoogen.

"It's been an enormous success. I think it would work elsewhere," she told Glaser.

It already has. The Dutch program was modeled on a similar effort in Switzerland, which has also proven successful. Germany and Britain have also adopted similar programs.

The Dutch approach is an example of the country's policy of gedogen (pragmatic tolerance), the same principle that led the Dutch to pioneer legal access to marijuana in the 1980s. It is also rooted in the notion that, for some, drug addiction is a chronic disorder, not a condition to be "cured," and one that can be treated with supervised drug use under clinical supervision. And the complete cessation of drug use need not be the ultimate goal; rather, the Dutch look for reductions in criminal activity and increases in the health and well-being of the drug users.

"It's not a program that is meant to help you stop," acknowledged van den Hoogen. "It keeps you addicted."

That's not a sentiment sits well with American moralizers, such as George W. Bush's drug czar, John Walters, whom Glaser consulted for the story. He suggested that providing addicts with drugs was immoral and not "real treatment," but he also resorted to lies about what the Dutch are doing.

He claimed the Dutch are "keeping people addicted for the purpose of controlling them" and that the Dutch have created "a colony of state-supported, locked-up addicts."

Actually, the Dutch are dealing with older, hard-core addicts who have repeatedly failed to quit after repeated stints in treatment, including methadone maintenance therapy, and they are neither "controlling them" or locking them up. Instead, the people in the program show up at the clinic twice a day, get their fix, then go about their business. This heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) allows those hardcore users to live less chaotic and more productive lives.

And heroin-assisted treatment is "real treatment," said Peter Blanken, a senior researcher with the Parnassia Addiction Research Centre in Rotterdam. He pointed out that one-quarter of program participants make a "complete recovery," including better health and quitting illegal drugs and excessive drinking. Many others continue to use heroin, but do so with better outcomes, he said.

There is also a real safety benefit to using state-supplied pharmaceutical heroin. It's potent, but it's a known quantity. Users face no risk of adulteration with more dangerous drugs, such as fentanyl, which is deeply implicated in the current U.S. overdose crisis.

In the current political atmosphere in the United States, providing heroin to hard-core addicts is a hard sell indeed. Other, lesser, harm reduction interventions, such as needle exchanges remain controversial, and the country has yet to see its first officially sanctioned safe injection site. And drug decriminalization, which has led to a dramatic reduction in heroin addiction and overdose deaths in Portugal, remains off the table here, too. But with an annual drug overdose death toll of more than 50,000 people a year, it may time to start asking how many more Americans we are willing to sacrifice on the altar of moralistic drug prohibition.

This article was produced by Drug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

 Related Stories

• The DEA's Move to Restrict Opioid Prescriptions Had an Unforeseen Consequence—It Pushed Users to the Dark Web
• 'Overdose Prevention’ Bill Would Actually Increase Overdoses by Driving People Out of Treatment
• Here Are Four Ways Fentanyl Could Radically Disrupt the Global Drug Trade

CBC.ca
Ottawa sought advice from kids to help pick cannabis warning ...
CBC.ca
Health Canada tapped the opinions of children as young as five years old as it attempted to decide what warning symbol would work best in mandatory labelling ...
What you need to know with federal legalization of cannabis just 3 months awayDaily Hive

all 5 news articles »

TheChronicleHerald.ca
HOWATT: Does cannabis use increase the risk for performance complacency in the workplace?
TheChronicleHerald.ca
Cannabis users often are stereotyped as being laid back, relaxed and chilled. Just watch an old Cheech and Chong movie and you'll get the picture. But when it comes to safety in the workplace, complacency matters. Without science, any response would be ...

Montreal Gazette
Cannabis countdown: Paradoxes and peculiarities of legalizing pot
Montreal Gazette
The most recent statistics suggest that 31 per cent of youths 15 to 17 years old smoke marijuana in Quebec, along with 41 per cent of 18- to 24 year-olds, affecting their ability to learn, and, often, their motivation. Some 28 per cent of cannabis ...

cantonrep.com (US) Is the first marijuana cultivator in the state to be cleared for growing medical marijuana. (Tue Jul 17 18:32:21 2018 PDT)

cantonrep.com (US) Is the first marijuana cultivator in the state to be cleared for growing medical marijuana. (Tue Jul 17 18:32:21 2018 PDT) [$drug_related(100%), $drugwar_propaganda(100%), $propaganda_theme1(100%), $propaganda_theme3(65%), $gateway(60%), $propaganda_theme4(60%), $illegal_drugs(100%), $plants(100%), $intoxicant(100%), $medical_cannabis(100%), $cannabis(100%)]

morningjournal.com (US) The warrant was obtained as a result of an investigation focusing on international drug traffickers bringing illegal contraband into Lorain County. (Tue Jul 17 18:28:06 2018 PDT) [$drug_related(100%), $drugwar_propaganda(100%), $propaganda_theme1(100%), $propaganda_theme2(50%), $propaganda_theme6(65%), $illegal_drugs(100%), $drugs(95%), $prohibition_agency(100%), $pharms(100%), $analgesic(100%), $anesthetic(100%), $opioid(100%), $narcotic(100%), $fentanyl(100%), $various_drugs(95%), $various_illegal_drugs(100%), $aggrandizement(85%)]

morningjournal.com (US) Drug bust in Elyria nets more than 400 grams of opioids ... (Tue Jul 17 18:28:06 2018 PDT) [$drug_related(100%), $drugwar_propaganda(50%), $propaganda_theme2(50%), $illegal_drugs(100%), $drugs(90%), $opioid(100%), $narcotic(100%), $various_drugs(90%), $incarceration(100%), $aggrandizement(85%)]

OH: logandaily.com - News, Obituaries, Sports, Weather, Classifieds and Jobs in Logan Ohio (US) Hocking County among highest county with opioid addicts on Medicaid LOGAN b A report by the Ohio Auditor of Stateb s office shows a big jump in Medicaid users with an opioid-related diagnosis and trends in Hocking County are among the highest in the state. (Tue Jul 17 18:25:48 2018 PDT) [$drug_related(100%), $drugwar_propaganda(80%), $propaganda_theme1(80%), $propaganda_theme2(50%), $propaganda_theme3(50%), $propaganda_theme5(75%), $illegal_drugs(100%), $opioid(100%), $narcotic(100%), $youth(75%), $school(100%), $meeting(60%)]

telegram.com (US) Another marijuana grower is knocking at Charlton's door - News - telegram.com - Worcester. (Tue Jul 17 14:19:03 2018 PDT)