LOCAL RESIDENTS TURN OUT TO BLOCK MMT FACILITY

Local residents turned out to vigorously support a zoning rule designed to preclude facilities that would provide methadone maintenance treatment. The current ordinance requires that "the distance from another developer has to be 1000 feet, and the distance from a playground, school, licensed bar, nursing home, is a half mile." An attorney for the corporation that wishes to open a clinic in the Keystone Industrial Park noted, "There is not a single location in Dunmore that would meet those requirements.”

It would seem a tossup which perceived threat is more ridiculous – that to playgrounds, or to schools, or to bars or to nursing homes.

For the full story (dated Oct 6) click here.

“YOUNG AND SUBURBAN, AND FALLING FOR HEROIN”

On September 27, 2009 The NY Times headlined: “Young and Suburban, and Falling for Heroin.” According to the article, “… officials across the New York region are grappling to understand” the devastating resurgence of heroin use in suburban America (and surely throughout the land), one conclusion seems inescapable: America ’s decades-old policy of absolute prohibition, and the overwhelming focus of Government on supply rather than demand, have been a disastrous failure. The cost of this failure is measured not only in hundreds of billions of dollars, but in the increasing toll of lost lives, including the 25 heroin overdoses in Nassau County alone in the first six months of this year. It is incredible – and irresponsible – that no one seems to be considering alternatives to this deadly, failed strategy.

To read the article, click here.

COST OF WAR ON DRUGS - AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE:

This headline appeared in Sydney Morning Herald 3 Oct. The conclusion that Australia would save almost $Au5 billion ($US4.2 billion) "if illicit drug sales were regulated and taxed the way tobacco is" rests on a number of assumptions that are less than rock solid. What is of note, however, is the statement attributed to an economist with the Australia-based policy institute Centre for Independent Studies, John Humphrey: "It gets interesting when you try to do a cost-benefit analysis on the prohibition [of drugs]. Basically, there aren't any benefits." Food for thought - in Australia and everywhere else! For the Full article

THE BLURRED LINE BETWEEN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND HEALTH CARE:

From Pain-Topics.Org News, Oct 3, some observations regarding the DEA and opioid prescribing: “Involvement of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the FDA’s plans for an opioid-REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy) initiative is still unknown. However, if what is happening with the prescribing of buprenorphine is any example, practitioners prescribing opioids for pain may be headed for considerable aggravation in the name of “regulatory responsibility. … While the vast majority of buprenorphine prescribers would probably have nothing to fear from DEA inspections, healthcare providers are understandably loathe to have government agencies scrutinizing their practices for any reason. Many will no doubt opt out of the buprenorphine program. Is this what the future might hold in store for opioid analgesics under REMS initiatives?” For Full story.