USA

Deliberately mixing the powerful and deadly drug with stimulants like coke and meth is one (dangerous) way users are adjusting to a new market. High Wire is Maia Szalavitz’s reported opinion column on drugs and drug policy. Way back in the 1980s, when I was injecting drugs, the speedball—a shot combining cocaine ...

Authorities have spoken out about the threat of fentanyl in recreational drugs, but there’s reason to believe their claims are overblown. Last May, staff from New York City’s Department of Health and Hygiene toured bars and nightclubs to spread the word that the city’s cocaine was being laced with the lethal synthetic ...

Source: Denver council approves safe injection sites with lessons from Vancouver|CityNews1130.com VANCOUVER – As an overdose crisis began taking shape in Denver, Colorado, one of the places the city’s leaders looked for answers was north of the border. Councillor Albus Brooks says he hopped on a plane to Vancouver last ...

Source: The opioid epidemic’s first corporate casualty may be a drugmaker that helped fuel the crisis|the Star.com Sitting in a Boston courtroom in a dark, pinstriped suit, the former top sales executive at Insys Therapeutics Inc., Alec Burlakoff, listened as federal prosecutors read out crimes he and the company had allegedly ...

Source: The Other Side of the Opioid Epidemic: Chronic Pain Patients|the Fix.com “It is borderline genocide,” said DeLuca, 37. “You are allowing [chronic pain patients] to go home and essentially suffer until they kill themselves.” Last year, Lauren DeLuca went to the emergency room in the middle of the night, ...

Source: How the war on drugs fueled the fentanyl crisis|The Guardian Originally published on August 29th 2017 The campaign to cut off heroin supplies has encouraged the growth of labs producing the opioid. We need to instead embrace a public health approach A staggering 59,000 people died of drug overdose in 2016 according to ...