"Harry was profoundly vulnerable — afflicted with a form of autism that rendered him gullible, impulsive, and prone to fits of anxiety and terror. He was desperate for friends, and willing to do anything, to give anything, for the people he cared about, or whom he wanted to care about him....
That's an excuse for illegal drug abuse when medical marijuana is a problem?
Kasper’s Ghost
Related: People who let friends die of overdoses should be prosecuted
Why is the ma$$ media so sympathetic towards the heroin junkie while hating the pot smoker?
Could it have to do with the fact that US intelligence agencies are the biggest drug runners on the face of the planet and the proceeds are pivotal to the healthy bottom line of money laundering Wall Street banks?
And why are they never investigating where the stuff comes from? Why is a proactive government in every way (waging wars, spying, tracking down tax evaders) being so reactive in this situation?
Someone else who will be a ghost soon:
"Patrick airs $20m plan to combat opioid use; More treatment and insurance, regional strategy" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff June 10, 2014
Governor Deval Patrick unveiled plans Tuesday to upgrade treatment for opioid addicts, expand insurance coverage, and coordinate with the other five New England governors to stem an epidemic that has claimed hundreds of lives in Massachusetts since last fall.
Key elements of the $20 million plan, which could create hundreds of new treatment beds, target the needs of adolescents and young adults, who made up about 40 percent of clients treated in fiscal 2013 by the state’s Bureau of Substance Abuse Services.
Related: Governor Deval Patrick has found about $20 million
Yeah, back then he took it out of heating assistance during the cold, cold winter and gave it to late-night T service so Bostonians can party until morning!
Btw, the heroin crisis adds to the list of his failure of a legacy.
Let's see there is the state drug lab scandal, the meningitis murders, the failed websites, the Bridgewater debacle, the DCF deaths, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some other things, too.
Among other recommendations, developed by a task force created in March, the state would provide four more residential treatment programs and five home-based programs to serve teenagers and young adults.
“These actions will help enhance our network of treatment and recovery services to help communities and families struggling with addiction,” said Patrick, who unveiled the plan in Boston at William J. Ostiguy High School, which supports adolescents struggling with substance-abuse issues.
The governor also announced that New England governors will meet next Tuesday at Brandeis University in Waltham to discuss a regional strategy to confront a crisis that transcends state borders.
In January, Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont devoted his entire State of the State address to the opioid epidemic. And in Rhode Island, state officials have acted swiftly and aggressively since large clusters of overdoses and related deaths began increasing early this year....
See: Not Interested
Heroin Bust in Hatfield
Ever notice how often the Globe drops the needle and doesn't follow up?
Patrick said he has heard “story after story” from patients whose private insurers have told them to look for coverage instead with MassHealth, the state’s insurance plan for low- and moderate-income residents....
Related: State Scraps Health Website
Also see: Mass. Health Connector website faces critical test in July
I guess you are still waiting for treatment then.
In one example, a detox facility would be created in Franklin County, which has no such service now.
Just happens to be where I am.
Addicts and others struggling with substance abuse in that sparsely populated county, which borders Vermont, often forgo treatment rather than travel elsewhere for help.
“This is a home run for Franklin County,” said John Merrigan, the county’s register of Probate and Family Court. “It’s a start for us. It’s the first step in the treatment aspect of what we need to do for our region.”
And still, “more needs to be done.”
--more--"
Globe gave us a visit:
"Long hunts for help add to addicts’ struggles; With no detox facilities, Franklin County faces a mounting toll" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff May 27, 2014
GREENFIELD — Nothing seemed amiss when Kathy Niedbala drove her 34-year-old daughter, Kara, home the night of July 3, 2012. The two chatted pleasantly, a hopeful change from the soul-searing worry that surfaced time and again during Kara’s long addiction to heroin and other drugs.
Kara, the mother of a 14-year-old son, had agreed to leave within the week for a residential drug-treatment program — 50 miles and more than an hour’s drive west, in Pittsfield. Her bags were packed.
But the next day, while Niedbala was at work, whatever hope existed the night before was obliterated. “I could hear the sirens, and I knew it was her,” Niedbala said.
Kara died of an overdose, and her mother was left to wonder what might have happened if closer, earlier treatment had been available.
There are no detox facilities in sparsely populated Franklin County, where at least 12 confirmed or suspected opioid-related deaths and 50 nonfatal overdoses have been recorded since December. Without detox beds, the county has no immediate way to help addicts when they first decide to wean themselves from drugs, and no beds for the immediate follow-up care that helps prevent relapses.
And no money to do anything about it; we are the poorest county in the whole state!
Related: Heroin is Here
The Iron Pipeline Between Massachusetts and Vermont
And government can't shut it off?
“There’s no doubt in my mind that people are dying because there are no beds,” said Michael Baldanza, an outreach worker for CARES, which offers recovery services to substance abusers.
Outreach workers like Baldanza can make dozens of phone calls and still fail to find beds outside the county, such as at the nearest detox facility 30 miles away in Holyoke; or at a short-term residential program 40 miles away in Springfield; or at other treatment options as distant as New Bedford, Foxborough, and Boston.
The response, Baldanza said, is almost always the same from overwhelmed facilities that cannot meet the need caused by the surge in heroin and opioid use in Massachusetts.
Yeah, the PRESCRIPTION PHARMACEUTICALS are the REAL GATEWAY DRUG but let's not di$cu$$ that!
“They say, ‘Call back in two hours,’ ” Baldanza said. “It’s few and far between that I get somebody into a bed. I worry, ‘Is this person going to die overnight?’ ”
That worry has become embedded in this hilly county of just 71,000 people — roughly the population of Somerville — where a rash of overdoses in January caught local officials off guard and unprepared.
“I was seeing the effects of it every day in our court, and we didn’t have anything in place,” said John Merrigan, register of Probate and Family Court. “It’s horrifying.”
Not only did Franklin County have no place to send addicts for detox treatment, but overdoses were mounting in a statistical and informational vacuum. Neither the county nor the state was collecting overdose data in real time, and victims and their families were unsure where to turn for help.
“They had no idea where to go,” Franklin County Sheriff Christopher Donelan said. “And we really had nowhere to send them.”
I used to like him because he answered his own phone when he was a rep, but not anymore.
Although the county has facilities for months-long residential treatment in which clients can come and go, and even hold a job, these openings are not for desperate addicts in crisis, counselors said. The county also does not have any intensive outpatient programs, which offer daily support that includes relapse prevention and case management. The closest one: 20 miles south of Greenfield in Northampton.
Franklin County’s last detox facility, where addicts turn for several days of supervised withdrawal, was closed a decade ago following budget cuts under then-governor Mitt Romney.
It was called the Beacon Clinic, and I remember. Was big news around here at the time.
Related: Bain Capitalizing on Heroin Crisis
That's why Mitt cut their budget!
Such facilities are critically important, counselors said, because addicts have a short window — sometimes only hours — between the time they ask for help and when they return to their habits.
“They have this moment when they think, ‘I really need to do something about this,’ ” said Justin McNary, community outreach coordinator for The Recover Project, a state-funded program here that offers counseling and peer support for substance abusers. “But if someone tells them, ‘Not right now,’ the light goes out.”
When a provider asks an addict to call back, McNary said, keeping that light aglow can be delicate and difficult.
The perils of waiting for treatment are familiar to Elaina Arce, a 27-year-old mother of two, who has been struggling with heroin.
“You want to go into rehab to get help, and they’re pushing you away, so why would I want to go?” said Arce, who lives in Greenfield. “They give you a list of phone numbers. You put your hands up and say, ‘Screw it, I’m not gonna go.’ ”
The director of the state Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, Hilary Jacobs, said that Franklin County is not alone in its need for detox and follow-up facilities, which are licensed and funded, not on a county-by-county basis, but as part of a network that divides the state into regions.
In fiscal 2013, Jacobs said, 959 residents of Franklin County received help — from detox to follow-up treatment to long-term residential care — somewhere in the state.
The western region, which includes Franklin County, encompasses the entire state west of Ware. In this geographically sprawling region, the state Department of Public Health has licensed three detox programs with a total of 81 beds, and three short-term residential programs with a combined 70 beds, according to department listings.
Getting to treatment outside Franklin County can be daunting for drug users, many of whom rarely venture far from home and are uncomfortable when they do. “You take a country person from out here and try to ship them to Dorchester, they don’t do well,” said Dr. Ruth Potee, a family physician at the Valley Medical Group in Greenfield.
But even getting to Holyoke or Springfield is difficult in a county where public transportation is limited to bus service that does not operate on nights or weekends.
Justin Wesolowski, a 33-year-old Greenfield man who is prescribed the opioid Suboxone to suppress his craving for heroin, flinches at the idea of traveling to those cities for additional treatment. Wesolowski does not own a car, and venturing there remains outside his comfort zone.
“I like Greenfield,” he said.
I do, too! It's my home! What I don't like a drug addicts ravaging the f*** out of it!
Still, Wesolowski said, “I would like to somehow get off of Suboxone and get a stable environment. It’s been a long road, and I’m still an addict.”
Jacobs said the state’s Health Policy Commission is assessing the current and future needs of substance abuse services across Massachusetts. She acknowledged that Franklin County officials are concerned, but said she is working on a broader strategy that considers what the state needs overall.
“I’m not going to disagree with them, but I’m going to say that we want a statewide system,” Jacobs said.
In the interim, community leaders, physicians, law enforcement officials, and alarmed parents across Franklin County have formed a task force to fight the opioid problem. Overdoses are being tracked in real time, treatment options are being canvassed, and an aggressive education campaign has been launched.
And all the things I mentioned at the beginning of this post remain unaddressed. They are forming a task force to treat the symptoms without treating the cause!
Goes to show you government is not really serious about winning or solving the drug war for the reasons I mentioned, which means they don't really care about the dead kids. They can't not know what is going because of all the data collection, communications and movement.
“We almost felt abandoned” by the state, said Donelan, the sheriff, who estimated that 80 percent of inmates at the Franklin County House of Correction go through withdrawal in their cells. “In hindsight, what we’ve done is almost better because we’ve done it ourselves.”
I agree with him there! We are better off by ourselves!
Merrigan, who helped jump-start the task force, is prepared for a long fight. In the last two weeks, he said, the county has recorded two more opiate-related deaths and about eight nonfatal overdoses.
“The battle has just begun,” Merrigan said. “We’re going to wage war like never before.”
Oh, great! WAR coming to my county!
So when do the DOORS START GETTING KICKED IN 'roun' h're?
--more--"
Also see:
"When Steven Radeos died on Jan. 27 from an apparent heroin overdose, his girlfriend turned over his cellphone to Braintree police officers investigating his death.
Going through his text messages, investigators learned that Radeos had been communicating with Quincy resident Kevin Sanderson, who allegedly sold him heroin on Jan. 25 with a warning about its potency: “Be careful and don’t think your superman with this. . . ”
NSA already had 'em!
Sanderson is among four people accused of operating a heroin distribution ring out of a Hyde Park apartment and allegedly run by Fernando, whose last name is unknown to authorities, and goes by the alias Cesar Gonzalez. . The federal charges, unsealed Tuesday in US District Court, come as Massachusetts faces an uptick in heroin overdoses."
Related: Man found dead in Barnstable jail had opiates in system
NY lawmakers unveil 25 bills to curb heroin use
"Search leads to arrest on drug trafficking charges
A Brockton man was arrested and charged with trafficking heroin after police searched his home Friday night, according to police Lieutenant Robert Sergio. Around 8:45 p.m., officers appeared at the apartment of James Salvi, 29, on 25 Columbia St. with a search warrant. They found drug paraphernalia, approximately $4,000 in cash, and 60 grams of heroin, according to Sergio. Salvi is scheduled to be arraigned in Brockton District Court on Monday."
If you don't want the heroin maybe you would like some of this:
"Drug lab uncovered in Falmouth" by Catalina Gaitan | Globe Correspondent June 12, 2014
A methamphetamine lab was discovered Thursday in Falmouth at a home occupied by an alleged drug dealer and a 10-year-old child, officials said.
Falmouth and Barnstable police and officials from the US Drug Enforcement Administration executed a search warrant at the Chestnut Street home, where they discovered the lab, Falmouth police said.
The owner of the home, identified as Edward Rooney, 33, was pulled over by police on Maravista Avenue later. Officials said Rooney was intoxicated and carrying a spring-loaded knife. The 10-year-old child who lives with him and a man identified as Sean Mahavik, 25, were passengers in the vehicle.
Rooney was arrested and charged with possession of drugs with intent to distribute and with carrying a dangerous weapon. Mahavik also was arrested and charged with possession of drugs with intent to distribute, Falmouth police said.
Barnstable police initiated the investigation after noticing an increase in methamphetamine use in the Main Street area of Hyannis.
--more--"
Let us pray:
"Supplier faces sentencing in priest’s meth ring
A California man faces years in prison for supplying methamphetamine to a Roman Catholic priest during a drug operation in Connecticut. Chad McCluskey, 44, of San Clemente, is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Hartford, and prosecutors are seeking an eight-year prison sentence. Defense lawyers want a five-year sentence. McCluskey and his girlfriend, Kristen Laschober, of Laguna Niguel, Calif., pleaded guilty last year to drug conspiracy charges for supplying four pounds of meth to Kevin Wallin, of Waterbury, a Catholic priest who is now suspended. Wallin was a pastor at St. Augustine Parish in Bridgeport. He has pleaded guilty to a federal drug charge for selling meth out of his Waterbury apartment and faces 11 to 14 years in prison when he is sentenced. Laschober is also awaiting sentencing."
Related: Monsignor Meth Meets His Maker
Thank God he was dealing drugs and not pumping some altar boy's pooper.
Also related: Meth House Cleanup Makes Me Mad
Leaders of the Revolution Commit Suicide in Las Vegas
They met their maker, maybe, I guess, who knows?
