News & Alerts

Author: MAIA ZALAVITZ
Date: September 22, 2011
Source: Opinionator

Mark Kinzly saved two lives this week. But he wouldn’t have been here to help if a friend hadn’t once done for him what he’s now repeatedly done for others — provide overdose victims with Naloxone, the antidote that revived them.

Overdose now kills more people in the United States than car accidents, making it the leading cause of injury-related mortality according to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of deaths — 37,485 in 2009 — could be cut dramatically if Naloxone were available over-the-counter and placed in every first aid kit.
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But that’s not likely to happen until the Food and Drug Administration takes some action. Naloxone is currently available only by prescription. Although dozens of needle exchange programs, rehab centers and pain specialists in at least 16 states distribute it, the prescription requirement severely limits its availability to those organizations that can afford to have doctors on staff.

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Drug war spending continues to rise as the government continues implementing the failed policies of the war on drugs. Now is our chance to demand that Congress stop wasting money on this catastrophe!
 
Recently, Congress was charged with cutting at least $1.5 trillion in government spending. That's why you need to write your representative today and show your support for cutting drug war funding.

Every year, the government spends at least $50 billion on the war on drugs with little to show for it. Drug war programs have filled prisons, diverted law enforcement from focusing on serious crimes, and violated civil and human rights here and abroad. The vast majority of Americans derive no benefit from these wasteful programs but they are sustained by powerful vested interests that profit off the drug war boondoggle.
 
Tell Congress that we've reached the drug war debt-ceiling and to eliminate expensive, ineffective, unaccountable drug war programs.

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Author: Lisa Girion, Scott Glover and Doug Smith
Date: Sept. 17, 2011
Source: LA Times

Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While most major causes of preventable death are declining, drugs are an exception. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes. By contrast, traffic accidents have been dropping for decades because of huge investments in auto safety.

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Date: Sept. 19, 2011
Source: LEAP

New FBI Numbers Reveal Failure of "War on Drugs"

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A new FBI report released today shows that there is a drug arrest every 19 seconds in the U.S. A group of police and judges who have been campaigning to legalize and regulate drugs pointed to the figures showing more than 1.6 million drug arrests in 2010 as evidence that the "war on drugs" is a failure that can never be won.

"Since the declaration of the 'war on drugs' 40 years ago we've arrested tens of millions of people in an effort to reduce drug use. The fact that cops had to spend time arresting another 1.6 million of our fellow citizens last year shows that it simply hasn't worked. In the current economy we simply cannot afford to keep arresting three people every minute in the failed 'war on drugs,'" said Neill Franklin, a retired Baltimore narcotics cop who now heads the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). "If we legalized and taxed drugs, we could not only create new revenue in addition to the money we'd save from ending the cruel policy of arresting users, but we'd make society safer by bankrupting the cartels and gangs who control the currently illegal marketplace."

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Author: Barry Lessin, M.Ed., CAADC
Date: Sept. 14, 2011
Source: barrylessin.com

The likelihood for addicts to get effective treatment improved greatly last month, when the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) released it’s public policy statement on the definition of addiction.
 
Boldly stating that addiction is a “primary, chronic disease”, ASAM has established the role of neurobiology in the development and maintenance of all addictive behaviors.
 
The research and science that the report is based on has been around for over a decade, but ASAM is the first medical-based organization to lay out a comprehensive summary of the established research that can potentially be used as a guide for development of public health policy and more effective treatment approaches based on this science.

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