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Republicans Signal New Thinking On Drugs, Treatment, And Punishment

Republicans Signal New Thinking On Drugs, Treatment, And Punishment

Of all the GOP presidential candidate soliloquies that began with “I’m the only one on this stage …,” one such story actually hit home Wednesday night.

It was shared by Carly Fiorina. It wasn’t a boast or a ploy to make herself stand out in the pack of male candidates. Rather, she described the personal pain of losing a child to drugs and alcohol.

“I very much hope that I am the only person on this stage who can say this, but I know there are millions of Americans out there who will say the same thing,” she began. “My husband, Frank, and I buried a child to drug addiction.”

Fiorina made the comment during a wide-ranging discussion about the war on drugs, medical marijuana, and incarceration rates for drug-related offenses. There was also the highly tweetable quote by Jeb Bush, admitting he smoked pot 40 years ago, a confession he made with an apology to his mother.

But that was the only light-hearted moment. This segment of the debate is notable because it clearly had the GOP candidates understanding drug addiction as a medical affliction first and foremost, more than just a crime.

Bravo for Fiorina’s candor.

There likely isn’t a family in America that hasn’t in some way been affected by addiction, be it to alcohol, prescription drugs, or street drugs.

The life of Lori Ann Fiorina was such an existence. Her stepmother detailed it in her book, Rising to the Challenge. The former Hewlett-Packard chief had helped raise Lori from the age of 6.

The family suspected Lori drank heavily in college. Like so many others, she apparently never made the crossover from binge drinking as a co-ed to a more controlled relationship with alcohol as an adult. That’s a sad, common story in America. And it’s not discussed enough, outside of afternoon talk shows anyway. Certainly, it’s not regularly addressed by political candidates.

For Fiorina’s stepdaughter, a post-graduation job in pharmaceutical sales apparently then that led to a prescription pill addiction and, finally, complications with bulimia. She died at 35.

It’s not the kind of topic many people like to discuss, much less political candidates. Such is the shame that is often attached to having a loved one who suffers from addiction.

The topic came up in the debate in questions to Sen. Rand Paul about his support for the legalization of marijuana and to Gov. Chris Christie about his stated opposition to it. Christie flatly stated, “I think the war on drugs has been a failure.” No one objected.

Sen. Paul noted: “The federal government has gone too far. The war on drugs has had a racial outcome.” He then pointed to the hypocrisy that people with more privilege use drugs and escape incarceration, while for too many young black people and Latinos in urban cities that’s not the case. They wind up with criminal records.

No one disputed that.

Fiorina, in fact, noted that two-thirds of incarcerated Americans are in jail or prison for nonviolent, often drug-related offenses. Candidates seemed to agree that drug courts, which route low-level and first time offenders to treatment instead of jail time, are a good idea.

All of this took place in the hallowed hall of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, which calls to mind a far different day, that of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign and the buildup to the war on drugs.

In 1986, Congress passed and Reagan endorsed a law that imposed a draconian five-year minimum sentence for those convicted in federal court for possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine. Notoriously, the same minimum sentence for powder cocaine (which white drug users overwhelmingly preferred) was 500 grams. The prison population of the United States exploded over the next two decades.

Getting America to move away from mass incarceration as a social panacea and toward prevention and treatment of addiction will be a daunting task. It may take a generation to accomplish — if it’s even possible.

There is too much money to be made in the penal industry, now a landscape of for-profit prison companies and powerful prison-guard lobby groups. And treatment programs entail upfront expenses that politicians and voters may balk at, although their beneficial impact on society and the economy are indisputable.

“Drug addiction is an epidemic,” Fiorina said pointedly to end her remarks on the subject. “And it is taking too many of our young people. I know this sadly from personal experience.”

That Republicans get this is one of the few signs of hope in an otherwise dismal primary season.

(Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via email at msanchez@kcstar.com.)

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This Week In Health: Beware Of Brain-Eating Amoebas

This Week In Health: Beware Of Brain-Eating Amoebas

“This Week In Health” offers some highlights from the world of health news and wellness tips that you may have missed this week:

  • Naegleria fowleri — more memorably known as the “brain-eating amoeba” — is a rare, lethal swimmer’s affliction that has been in the news lately. The amoeba affects people who swim in contaminated pools and freshwater lakes and ponds — it crawls up their nose and causes an infection that destroys brain tissue. A California woman died last week of the infection; a Minnesota boy this week may be the latest victim, indicating that the amoeba — typically found in warmer climates — is inching north. To avoid infection, Centers for Disease Control advises swimmers “to avoid lakes, rivers and hot springs during heat waves or periods of low water levels.”
  • Screening for diseases could get a lot easier and lot less invasive soon. Researchers claim to have developed a “laserlyzer” (laser breathalyzer) that can analyze the contents of a cloud of gas (or breath) for disease and infection — essentially a device for “sniffing” out illness. Fittingly, the researchers are describing it as an “optical dog’s nose.”
  • According to both the FDA and the CDC, heroin addiction is up in the United States. A new report says “that 2.6 out of every 1,000 U.S. residents 12 and older used heroin in the years 2011 to 2013. That’s a 63 percent increase in the rate of heroin use since the years 2002 to 2004.” CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, says the surge in heroin use is “driven by both the prescription opioid epidemic and cheaper, more available heroin.”

Photo: Iqbal Osman via Flickr

Heroin Use And Addiction Are Surging In The U.S., CDC Report Says

Heroin Use And Addiction Are Surging In The U.S., CDC Report Says

By Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Heroin use surged over the past decade, and the wave of addiction and overdose is closely related to the nation’s ongoing prescription drug epidemic, federal health officials said Tuesday.

A new report says that 2.6 out of every 1,000 U.S. residents 12 and older used heroin in the years 2011 to 2013. That’s a 63 percent increase in the rate of heroin use since the years 2002 to 2004.

The rate of heroin abuse or dependence climbed 90 percent over the same period, according to the study by researchers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Deaths caused by heroin overdoses nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013, claiming 8,257 lives in 2013.

In all, more than half a million people used heroin in 2013, up nearly 150 percent since 2007, the report said.

Heroin use remained highest for the historically hardest-hit group: poor young men living in cities. But increases were spread across all demographic groups, including women and people with private insurance and high incomes _ groups associated with the parallel rise in prescription drug use over the past decade.

The findings appear in a Vital Signs report published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

“As a doctor who started my career taking care of patients with HIV and other complications from injection drugs, it’s heartbreaking to see injection drug use making a comeback in the U.S.,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC.

All but 4 percent of the people who used heroin in the past year also used another drug, such as cocaine, marijuana or alcohol, according to the report. Indeed, 61 percent of heroin users used at least three different drugs.

The authors of the new study highlighted a “particularly strong” relationship between the use of prescription painkillers and heroin. People who are addicted to narcotic painkillers are 40 times more likely to misuse heroin, according to the study.

Once reserved for cancer and end-of-life pain, these narcotics now are widely prescribed for conditions ranging from dental work to chronic back pain.

“We are priming people to addiction to heroin with overuse of prescription opiates,” Frieden said at a news conference Tuesday. “More people are primed for heroin addiction because they are addicted to prescription opiates, which are, after all, essentially the same chemical with the same impact on the brain.”

Frieden said the increase in heroin use was contributing to other health problems, including rising rates of new HIV infections, cases of newborns addicted to opiates and car accidents. He called for reforms in the way opioid painkillers are prescribed, a crackdown on the flow of cheap heroin and more treatment for those who are addicted.

(c)2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: JoshNV via Flickr

Top Reads For News Junkies: ‘The Night Of The Gun’

Top Reads For News Junkies: ‘The Night Of The Gun’

The world was stunned Thursday night by the sudden death of David Carr, the inimitable, charismatic New York Times reporter who covered digital journalism, new media, and internet culture with a singular combination of wit, insight, and integrity. Carr’s success was all the more remarkable for the fact that he had struggled with an addiction to crack cocaine for years. In his memoir, The Night of the Gun, Carr investigated and reconstructed the darkest chapters of his own life, telling his story in his own voice — unsentimental and keen — which has been silenced far too soon.

You can purchase the book here.