Heroin addict overdoses and leaves this poem

Although Delaney has died, she left behind a powerful poem that has struck a chord with many. The poem, which expresses what it’s like to struggle with heroin addiction, was included by her mother in her obituary (whose online version had crashed from a surge of traffic on Friday) after she found it in her daughter’s journal. Here is the complete poem written by Delaney: Funny, I don’t remember no good dope days. I remember walking for miles in a dope fiend haze. I remember sleeping in houses that had no electric. I remember being called a junkie, but I couldn’t accept it. I remember hanging out in abandos that were empty and dark. I remember shooting up in the bathroom and falling out at the park. I remember nodding out in front of my sisters kid. I remember not remembering half of the things that I did. I remember the dope man’s time frame, just ten more minutes. I remember those days being so sick that I just wanted to end it. I remember the birthdays and holiday celebrations. All the things I missed during my incarceration. I remember overdosing on my bedroom floor. I remember my sisters cry and my dad having to break down the door. I remember the look on his face when I opened my eyes, thinking today was the day that his baby had died. I remember blaming myself when my mom decided to leave. I remember the guilt I felt in my chest making it hard to breathe. I remember caring so much but not knowing how to show it and I know to this day that she probably don’t even know it. I remember feeling like I lost all hope. I remember giving up my body for the next bag of dope. I remember only causing pain, destruction and harm. I remember the track marks the needles left on my arm. I remember watching the slow break up of my home. I remember thinking my family would be better off if I just left them alone. I remember looking in the mirror at my sickly complexion. I remember not recognizing myself in my own Damn reflection. I remember constantly obsessing over my next score but what I remember most is getting down on my knees and asking God to save me cuz I don’t want to do this no more!!! Arboleda, C. (2017). Mom shares late daughter’s poem about heroin addiction. https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/mom-shares-late-daughters-poem-heroin-addiction-210729832.html

You're spending money on heroin addicts, whether you want to or not It's our sisters, it's our nieces, it's our cousins; it's somebody in our family all the time," said Tabitha McCostlin, who recently had a friend die from an opioid overdose. There are all sorts of ways people use opioids to get high, and all sorts of people do it - through pills, powder, liquid - by swallowing, shooting, or snorting. "It's not just in the ghettos or the really bad parts; it's everywhere," said McCostlin, adding that her own friends have been affected. ADVERTISING "He passed away of a fentanyl overdose. It was just a bad batch, wrong time. It affected everyone we worked with; [he was] a very close friend of mine," said McCostlin. Beyond personal relationships, heroin addiction affects taxpayers too. A new PLOS ONE study shows the costs of heroin use disorder in 2015. In the U.S. heroin costs society $50,799 per user. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, 591,000 people had a substance use disorder involving heroin in 2015. According to PLOS ONE Americans spent $51.2 billion in 2015 alone on heroin use disorder. The money is spent on medical treatments, and crime and incarceration costs, among other things. None of this comes as a surprise to McCostlin. "That wouldn't surprise me at all; not [with it being] as widespread as it is," said McCostlin. The study caps off with an obvious conclusion: we need a new strategy to reduce the likelihood of abuse and provide care and support for users to overcome the disorder. `

Chief deputy: Treatment, not arrest, best prescription for addiction

By Kimball Perry The Columbus Dispatch Every day, Sgt. Shawn Pak saw the damage heroin and opioids cause in his job at the Franklin County jail. And the deputy with the county sheriff’s office believed addicts were responsible for their own misery. “It was kind of businesslike, kind of a detached view,” Pak said. Trending Articles That view changed, though, when the brother of Pak’s best friend became addicted to heroin, bringing to his family the pain and helplessness so many other families have suffered. Pak changed his attitude after “seeing the pain in my best friend’s eyes” when he told Pak about the horror addiction imposed on his family. The family’s matriarch, who is like a second mother to Pak, is now terrified by the telephone. “She told me, ‘Every time the phone rings, I’m expecting it be be the call that he’s dead,’” Pak said. The family was elated when that brother was taken off the streets. “He’s in jail,” Pak said. “They’re relieved. At least he’s alive.” Rick Minerd, the department’s chief deputy, wants more first responders to undergo Pak’s change in attitude if they want to save lives. Minerd, who has been a deputy for 26 years, used to believe addicts were too selfish to care about anyone else, so they deserved their woes. But he came to the same conclusion as Pak after taking part in a prostitution sting to arrest young women who sold their bodies to get money for drugs. After that sting, Minerd ultimately decided law enforcement officers should help addicts get treatment. “I used to think addicts came from bad families,” Minerd said. “The more I learned (about addiction), the more of an open mind I had.” Law enforcement officers are taking more drugs than ever off of the streets, but more people are dying. Last year, 353 people in Franklin County died from drug overdoses, a 10 percent increase over the 321 who died in 2015. As the heroin and opioid epidemic made a deadly sweep across Ohio, the 2015 statewide overdose deaths of 3,050 people rose in 2016 to 4,149 deaths, a 36 percent increase. Because the old attitudes haven’t worked, Minerd said, he is helping to change them. Law enforcement will better serve the community, he said, by better understanding addiction’s hold. “I think it’s one of the biggest gaps that’s here — a misunderstanding from cops and the community of what addiction is,” he said. “Some of those experiences open people’s eyes. I think for cops, you have to be slapped in the face.” More and more, health and addiction professionals note that addiction is an illness that can be treated with proper time, tools and techniques. None of those include dumping addicts in jails. That doesn’t mean no arrests. It means smarter arrests. “We have to educate cops on what addiction is, to allow cops to be traffic cops for addiction,” Minerd said. It also means addicts have to want to get clean, which might take several rounds of rehabilitation to stay clean. “It’s still a choice. You have to work extremely hard,” Minerd said. Last week, Franklin County’s Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board announced it will provide $1 million for a two-year program to provide rehabilitation, mental health and other services for overdose patients. That program stems from the county’s HOPE task force, or Heroin Overdose Prevention and Education. It is a collaboration of government agencies and social workers to crack down on drug dealers, including prosecuting those who provide drugs that result in overdose deaths, and to place those who overdose in treatment and educate them. “We are trailblazers in Ohio,” Minerd said of the HOPE model. Minerd wants the Ohio attorney general, whose office runs the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, to include training about addiction and rehabilitation. The Franklin County sheriff’s office already is providing more training for its deputies, including how to administer naloxone, the drug that can offset the effects of an opiate overdose. “It’s a mindset that we continue to turn around,” Minerd said. The design of the new jail that Franklin County plans to open in 2019 will reflect that change by adding more space to educate inmates about addiction. “It’s slowly changing,” Minerd said. “I do think it’s working.” kperry@dispatch.com @kimballperry

Science says: Medications prevent opioid addiction relapse

NATIONAL NEWS 11 of 50 prev next May 24, 2017 08:10 AM By CARLA K. JOHNSON AP Medical Writer CHICAGO (AP) - Remarks by a top U.S. health official have reignited a quarrel in the world of addiction and recovery: Does treating opioid addiction with medication save lives? Or does it trade one addiction for another? Health Secretary Tom Price's recent comments - one replying to a reporter's question, the other in a newspaper op-ed - waver between two strongly held views. Medication-assisted treatment, known as MAT, is backed by doctors. Yet it still has skeptics, especially among supporters of 12-step programs like Narcotics Anonymous, because it involves opioid-based medications. Price appeared to side with that camp when he said during a recent visit to Charleston, West Virginia: "If we just simply substitute buprenorphine or methadone or some other opioid-type medication for the opioid addiction, then we haven't moved the dial much." But in an opinion piece published last week in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, he twice mentioned his agency's support for medication-assisted treatment. Here's a closer look. HOW MEDICATION CAN TREAT ADDICTION Because of how opioids act on the brain , people dependent on them get sick if they stop using. Withdrawal can feel like a bad flu with cramping, sweating, anxiety and sleeplessness. Cravings for the drug can be so intense that relapse is common. Medication-assisted treatment helps by moving a patient from powerful painkillers or an illicit opioid like heroin to a regular dose of a legal opioid-based medication such as buprenorphine or methadone. The ideal dose is big enough to fend off withdrawal, but too small to produce a euphoric high. Patients can drive, rebuild relationships and get back to work. "They're not walking around high" and it gives them the chance to practice new ways of coping with family and psychological issues, said Dr. Joseph Garbely of Pennsylvania-based Caron Treatment Centers. With counseling and education about addiction, patients can get back on track. They eventually can taper off medications, but some take them for years. WHAT RESEARCH SAYS Researchers studying these treatments use drug screening to see whether patients are staying off illegal drugs. If someone uses heroin while in treatment, it shows up in their urine. A 2014 review of 31 studies found methadone and buprenorphine keep people in treatment and off illicit drugs. The review by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international group of scientists that evaluates research, found each drug worked better than a dummy medication. A side benefit worth noting: Methadone also helps prevent the spread of HIV by reducing needle sharing, a different research review by Cochrane found. Methadone and buprenorphine can be abused and both can cause overdoses, particularly methadone. But researchers have found that methadone prevents more overdose deaths than it causes. For most patients, medication combined with counseling is superior to other strategies, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine. OTHER OPTIONS "What's right for one person isn't necessarily right for another person," Price said during a May 9 visit to West Virginia. When asked whether he and his team leaned toward medication or faith-based approaches to opioid addiction, his reply lined up with those who favor abstinence. Abstinence-only philosophies "are not scientifically supported," according to the first surgeon general's report on addiction, published in November. Yet people who describe themselves as in recovery consistently say abstinence is important. All told, remission from opioid addiction can take years and multiple tries at treatment. "The public needs to know that there are proven, effective treatments for opioid addiction," former U.S. General Vivek Murthy told The Associated Press. Murthy was fired by the Trump administration after he refused to resign. Price also mentioned a non-opioid alternative - namely an injection of naltrexone called Vivitrol - as "exciting stuff." Vivitrol, a newer drug, can be used only with patients who have completely detoxed and has a limited track record compared to buprenorphine and methadone. Early studies have shown promise, but relapse is a danger after injections stop. Health and Human Services spokeswoman Alleigh Marre told AP that Price's comments don't signal a policy change. Price "has argued that we should be open and supportive to the broadest range of options, from medication-assisted treatments - including methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone - to faith-based recovery programs," Marre said. Not informing patients about the effectiveness of treating addiction with medication is like a doctor not telling a cancer patient about chemotherapy, said Dr. Mark Willenbring, a former director of treatment research at the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. "Scientifically, this is a settled matter."

1994's MOST BIZARRE SUICIDE

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story. "On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten- story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this." >>"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands. "The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window striking Opus. "When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her - therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded. "The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus. There was an exquisite twist. "Further investigation revealed that the son [Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window. "The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."

THE NARCOTIC FARM

From its opening in 1935, the United States Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, epitomized this country’s ambivalence about how to treat addiction. On the one hand, it was a humane hospital set on 1,000 acres of farmland where drug addicts could recover from their habits. On the other hand, it was an imposing federal prison built to incarcerate convicted addicts.

“Narco,” as it was known locally, was a strange anomaly, a coed institution where convicts did time alongside volunteers who’d checked themselves in for treatment. It became the world’s epicenter for drug treatment and addiction research. For forty years it was the gathering place for this country’s growing drug subculture, a rite of passage that initiated famous jazz musicians, drug-abusing MDs, street hustlers, and drugstore cowboys into the new fraternal order of the American junkie.

But what began as a bold and ambitious public works project was shut down in the 1970s amid changes in drug policy and scandal over its drug program, which recruited hundreds of prisoners to volunteer as human guinea pigs for groundbreaking drug experiments and rewarded them with bonus doses of heroin for their efforts.

The Narcotic Farm – both the documentary and the book - tells the story of this fascinating institution through rare photographs and film, forgotten press clippings, revealing government documents, and historically significant new interviews with prisoners, doctors, and guards who were there. Through their interviews and a wealth of newly collected archival material, The Narcotic Farm traces this federal institution’s rise and tumultuous fall.

Links....

more about the history of the Narcotic Farm and addiction research read Discovering Addiction, by Nancy Campbell For more about the history of women in American discourse on addiction, read Using Women, by Nancy Campbell For more on the history of addiction research including interviews with scientists and doctors who began their careers at The Narcotic Farm, go to: University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center website For more about The Narcotic Farm's narrator and composer Wayne Kramer Wayne Kramer's website Former Narcotic Farm inmate William Burroughs reads "The Do-Rights," a poem about the Narcotic Farm The Man with the Golden Arm, a feature film which opens with Frank Sinatra's character returning from the Narcotic Farm Panic in Needle Park, a stunning LIFE photo essay about heroin addiction in the early 1960s by Bill Eppridge that became the basis for the Al Pacino film of the same title National Institute on Drug Abuse website PBS Frontline documentary, Drug Wars, associate produced by Narcotic Farm produce/director, JP Olsen "Prisontown" music video by The Malefactors of Great Wealth