Sessions’ marijuana advisor wants to drug test everyone

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

https://herb.co/marijuana/news/jeff-sessions-marijuana-advisor-dupont-drug-test-everyone

A top-level advisor to Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants doctors to drug test all their patients, and to force users, they suspect of addiction into rehabilitation against their will. If Robert DuPont gets his way, drug testing could become a required part of your visit to the doctor.DuPont, 81, is one of a small group of drug-policy “experts” Sessions invited to a closed meeting last month to discuss federal response to marijuana legalization. He is one of the most hardline and influential architects of the Drug War, having started out in the 1970s as a liberal on the drug control issue. But by the 1980s DuPont had taken a hard right turn, popularizing the long-debunked claim that cannabis is a “gateway drug.”

DuPont wants to force people into treatment for up to 5 years.

In an interview last year, DuPont pushed for expanding drug testing. His idea includes having physicians force patients whom they believe to have substance abuse problems to submit to drug tests, or lengthy stays in treatment facilities reports Newsweek.

“Among other things, he proposed giving doctors the authority to compel suspected substance abusers into treatment against their will,” reports The Daily Beast. “Once in treatment, patients could face up to five years of monitoring, including random drug tests.”

“We want [drug screens] to be routine in all medicine,” DuPont said. “Doctors already check for things like cholesterol and blood sugar, why not test for illicit drugs? Right now the public thinks that if we provide treatment the addicts will come and get well … that’s not true. So let’s use the leverage of the criminal justice system.”

DuPont was invited to the meeting to speak on “the effects of marijuana on drugged driving.” He has some pretty radical ideas on that subject, too.

A national model bill he helped write in 2010 called on cops to test anyone stopped for suspicion of driving under the influence for all controlled substances, and arresting them on the spot if the slightest trace showed up — regardless of the amount. While the bill includes an exemption for drivers with prescriptions, cannabis users would still get busted. Medical-marijuana patients don’t have prescriptions (due to federal law), just doctor recommendations.

RobertLDupont Sessions marijuana advisor wants to drug test everyone
WASHINGTON – NOVEMBER 29: The President of the Institute for Behavior and Health doctor Robert L. DuPont, an opponent of medical marijuana, speaks to the media outside of the U.S. Supreme Court November 29, 2004, in Washington, D.C. The court heard arguments from last years 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Ascroft v Raich to decide whether the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 is unconstitutional as it applies to the right to cultivate and possess cannabis to treat medical conditions as recommended by a medical doctor. (Photo by Mannie Garcia/Getty Images)

That bill’s language makes it specifically clear that people will still be punished even if they are legal medical marijuana patients in states which permit its use. “[The] fact that any person charged with violating this subsection is or was legally entitled to consume alcohol or to use a controlled substance, medication, drug, or other impairing substance, shall not constitute a defense against any charge,” the bill reads.

Even more ominously, the bill includes a section, “prohibiting the internal possession of chemical or controlled substances,” which means you can be arrested for failing a drug test.

“Any person who provides a bodily fluid sample containing any amount of a chemical or controlled substance … commits an offense punishable in the same manner as if the person otherwise possessed that substance.”

This means you could face federal criminal charges for failing a drug test. Of course, the fact that all of this flies in the face of the Fourth Amendment can’t be overlooked. Mandatory drug testing and involuntary detention are radical and according to many legal scholars,  unconstitutional..

DuPont’s views on cannabis became increasingly conservative as his career in drug policy flourished. In 1978, after serving as President Richard Nixon’s drug czar, he warned The Washington Post the marijuana would have “horrendous” effects on society.

“I get a very sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I hear talk about marijuana being safe,” DuPont said. “I have no doubt there are going to be horrendous [effects].” The quote was later used in a 1981 report, “The Marijuana Epidemic,” by far-right think tank The Heritage Foundation.

DuPont proposed that all welfare recipients — and their children  — should be forced to submit to drug testing in a policy The Heritage Foundation also published. This created controversy, because DuPont, after a four-year stint at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) had ventured into the drug-testing industry, reports Rewire. Suddenly, it had become financially beneficial for DuPont to oppose cannabis legalization and support widespread drug testing.

In 2000, he appeared before the federal Food and Drug Administration, pushing for expanded hair follicle testing. DuPont claimed there was no conflict of interest, even though at the time was also a paid consultant and shareholder in Psychemedics, which offered costly hair testing analysis.

A couple of years back… the then Indiana AG Zoeller “persuaded” the Medical Licensing Board to pass an emergency rules mandating that all pts taking opiates MUST BE URINE TESTED… http://nationalpainreport.com/aclu-sues-mandatory-drug-tests-8822798.html  

The ACLU took them to court and the mandatory urine testing was declared a VIOLATION OF THE 4TH AMENDMENT… and the rule was declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

If Session remains in office and continues on the current path of taking us back to the 70’s in fighting the war on drugs… will almost assure that President Trump has ZERO CHANCE of getting elected for a second term.  This 81 y/o advisor needs to RETIRE… obviously his “medical expertise” is grossly out of step with the wants/opinions of the majority of the citizens of the country.

Filed under: General Problems | 2 Comments »

@Kolodny believes one more method for pts to properly discard opiates is UNNECESSARY ?

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

Walmart Offers Product To Destroy Leftover Opioids, But Critics Say It’s Unnecessary

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/17/578591771/walmart-offers-product-to-destroy-leftover-opioids-but-critics-say-its-unnecessa

Walmart is the latest national company joining in the fight to try to help curb America’s harrowing opioid epidemic, which now kills more people than breast cancer.

On Wednesday the chain rolled out a pharmacy product it says provides a safe way to get rid of extra prescription opioid drugs. It’s called DisposeRx and when mixed with warm water it turns any form of opioid drug — including powders, pills, tablets, capsules, liquids or patches — into a biodegradable gel that can’t be separated or converted back into a usable drug.

Walmart touted it as the first of its kind in a statement, and said the ingredients are FDA approved.

“The health and safety of our patients is a critical priority; that’s why we’re taking an active role in fighting our nation’s opioid issue – an issue that has affected so many families and communities across America,” Marybeth Hays, executive vice president of Consumables and Health and Wellness at Walmart U.S., said in the statement.

In 2016 more than 42,000 Americans died of an opioid overdose — including prescription opioids, heroin and fentanyl. That is more than any year on record and 40 percent of all overdose deaths involved a prescription.

Walmart explained patients filling new opioid prescriptions at any of its 4,700 pharmacies will receive a free DisposeRx packet starting immediately, while existing customers can ask for one at any time. Patients with chronic pain prescriptions will be offered packets every six months.

Republican Sen. John Boozman from Arkansas praised Walmart for helping “to keep unused prescription drugs out of the wrong hands.”

“About one-third of medications sold go unused. Too often, these dangerous narcotics remain unsecured where children, teens or visitors may have access,” he said in the statement Walmart released.

A CDC study found Arkansas’ prescription drugs are so ubiquitous there are enough pills on the black market that every single citizen — nearly 3 million in the state — could have a full bottle, reported Talk Business & Politics.

Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University, agrees that leftover pills do contribute to the spread of addiction but he says products like DisposeRx are unnecessary because the CDC already encourages anyone who’s at the end of a prescription opioid treatment to “flush them down the toilet.” No special ingredients necessary.

“The problem is the general public just doesn’t know that,” he said.

“Think about it,” he continued, “every time someone taking an opioid medication urinates or defecates, it gets into the water supply. So that’s not the real problem.”

Kolodny is also conducting a long-term study on the impact of numerous legislative and private company-led efforts to stem the epidemic. His conclusion on Walmart’s DisposeRx? “It’s nice that they’re trying but it will have little impact.”

The root of the explosion in the addiction crisis, he says, is rampant over-prescribing by doctors and dentists. Through his research, which is ongoing, Kolodny has found that policies limiting prescriptions are most effective, like the one imposed by CVS. In September the drug-store chain began limiting opioid painkillers to seven-day supplies for new patients.

But even that falls short of what is required, Kolodny said.

A better strategy is the one undertaken by the Vermont Department of Health. New rules established in April limit the quantity of a “morphine milligram equivalent” in prescriptions. They lay out specific dosages of drugs containing oxycodone, hydrocodone and acetaminophen-oxycodone (found in Percocet) that doctors should prescribe.

Kaiser Health News reported 22 states either adopted or toughened their prescription size limits in 2016.

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Don’t just prescribe pain meds, new state guidelines tell doctors

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/01/17/dont-just-prescribe-pain-meds-new-state-guidelines-tell-doctors/1041573001/

Chronic pain physicians had them. So did emergency room doctors. Now outpatient physicians have clear guidelines for managing acute pain without quickly resorting to opioids.

The Indiana Hospital Association, Indiana State Medical Association and the Indiana State Department of Health collaborated to produce the guidelines that aim to discourage the overuse of prescription pain pills considered responsible for driving the opioid crisis.

“I believe these guidelines are a critical tool for both healthcare providers and for patients and will allow them to work together to identify the safest and most effective tools to treat their acute pain,” said Dr. Kristina Box, Indiana State Health Commissioner.

The new guidelines recommend that for patients with acute pain — pain defined as being related to damaged tissue and that will resolve with healing in a matter of days and weeks — doctors first consider non-pharmacologic treatment, such as ice, acupuncture, chiropracty and massage. If those are not strong enough, doctors should then consider non-opioid pharmacologic treatment, the guidelines say.

 

Only the most severe injuries warrant opioids, the guidelines say. In those instances, doctors should take several steps to ensure that the drugs are not misused, using opioids only in concert with other therapies, putting patients on the lowest dose possible and offering no refills.

An Indiana law that went into effect in July prohibits doctors from prescribing more than a seven-day supply to patients under 18 or to adults for whom that is their first prescription from that provider. Within the first few months of the law going into effect, there were 100,000 fewer prescriptions written, said Dr. John McGoff, president of the Indiana State Medical Association.

 While many doctors shy away from practicing what McGoff called “cookbook medicine,” he added that the guidelines aim to raise awareness among doctors about the problem and serve as a document that doctors can consult for best practices on how to address a patient’s acute pain.

The stunning statistics associated with the opioid epidemic prompted the experts to devise ways to decrease doctors’ reliance on opioids. Excessive prescribing in the early part of this century helped stoke the epidemic, many experts believe.

Since 1999, Indiana has seen death by drug overdose increase by 500 percent.

Nationally accidents have become the third leading cause of death in the United States for the first time ever, according to the National Safety Council.

In 2016, preventable deaths increased by 10 percent over the previous year, largely due to a rise in deaths due to drug overdoses and motor vehicle crashes. Previously chronic respiratory diseases were responsible for the most deaths after heart disease and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the experts who wrote the guidelines hope doctors find them useful, the final decision of whether to prescribe an opioid still rests with the doctor, said Julie Reed, executive vice president of the Indiana State Medical Association of the guidelines. Doctors will be able to tailor their decisions to fit their patients’ needs.

“They don’t stand to replace professional judgment or clinical judgment,” said Julie Reed, executive vice president of the Indiana State Medical Association of the guidelines. “That’s really an important thing that needs to be balanced, that is to make sure that the needs and unique characteristics and judgment that healthcare providers have learned through their training over the years can really serve to complement these guidelines.”

IndyStar’s “State of Addiction: Confronting Indiana’s Opioid Crisis” series is made possible through the support of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, a nonprofit foundation working to advance the vitality of Indianapolis and the well-being of its people.

Call IndyStar staff reporter Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354. Follow her on Twitter and on Facebook.

Filed under: General Problems | 2 Comments »

Local pharmacies losing business from accidental third-party mailer – CAN’T UNRING A BELL ?

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

http://www.wbay.com/content/news/Local-pharmacies-losing-business-from-accidental-third-party-letter-470016993.html

SHAWANO, Wis. (WBAY) – At least a dozen local pharmacy across Wisconsin are scrambling after a large company recently sent an accidental letter to its customers which claims they needed to switch to big-box pharmacies if they want lower prices.

Express Scripts is a Fortune 100 company that handles the benefits between clients and their pharmacies all across the U.S. The company is now apologizing after its erroneous letter led many of those clients to turn their backs on locally-owned pharmacies.

Sent in December to about 2,600 people, the note claims customers will pay a higher price if they don’t switch to big box stores nearby, or else use Express Scripts’ own home-delivery service.

Tim Dreier’s family has owned a pharmacy in downtown Shawano for fifty years. When his longtime clients came in and said they had to switch, he knew there had been a mistake.

“It’s consumed over a week of my time. Pretty much everyone that comes in here asks about it. Some still aren’t aware that this is not the case,” said Dreier, who also informed pharmacists in other towns after Express Scripts admitted to the mistake.

The uncertainty hit the family hard. “I really didn’t sleep much that night knowing how this would affect us, and it was serious,” said Jana Dreier.

Tim Dreier took action as soon as the transfer calls came. “One pharmacy called me with a couple transfers, and I called these people back. I said, ‘Are you transferring because of this letter?’ And they said yes.”

“We don’t want to lose any of our faithful customers who have been coming here for decades,” said Dreier.

Target 2 found pharmacies affected by the error all across the state. We even broke the news that the letter wasn’t true to one pharmacist over the phone.

Others have been fighting to keep their customers for a week.

“What we’re trying to do is be proactive and give our patients phone calls, but we don’t know the number of patients or customers that have actually received the letter. We won’t know until they don’t come in or they call us,” said Diane Collier, owner of Erickson Pharmacy in Clintonville.

Collier wants a better, immediate response from Express Scripts. “Very frustrated,” she said. “They’ve basically admitted making a mistake and that they were going to give the patients phone calls to let them know. But it’s a robo call. So they hang up, they don’t listen to it. It needs to be handled with another letter. They had no problem sending letters out to begin with!”

Pharmacists tell us they’re already losing money.

“They are going to come back, but we’ve lost that business for this month,” said Collier.

In a statement to Target 2, Express Scripts says it will mail a letter of apology to all clients affected.

 

 

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Pharma Industry Scorns Governor’s Opioid Surtax Proposal

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/sites/newyorklawjournal/2018/01/18/pharma-industry-scorns-governors-opioid-surtax-proposal/

ALBANY—A national trade group representing the pharmaceutical industry is vehemently opposed to a proposal by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to levy a tax on opioids.

On Tuesday, during his annual budgetary address to the Legislature, Cuomo unveiled an “Opioid Epidemic Surcharge,” a 2-cent-per-morphine-milligram tax on opioids pharmaceutical companies sell in the state. The surcharge on opioids is expected to “provide a financial disincentive for the use of these drugs and generate roughly $125 million to support ongoing efforts to address the opioid crisis,” according to Cuomo’s budget briefing book.

“Opioid manufacturers have created an epidemic. We would have an opioid surcharge—2 cents per milligram [that] will be paid by the manufacturer and would go to offset the costs that we’re spending to fight opioid abuse,” Cuomo said during his Tuesday speech.

PhRMA, the powerful Washington-based advocacy group that represents pharmaceutical companies, blasted Cuomo’s proposal, arguing that the narrowed focus doesn’t take into consideration many other factors that have contributed to the spike of opioid use in the country.

“We are opposed to the proposed tax because it ignores all of the factors that resulted in the current crisis and unfairly penalizes and ostracizes vulnerable patients who legitimately rely on these medicines to treat serious, debilitating and sometimes fatal conditions,” said PhRMA spokeswoman Priscilla VanderVeer.

“The proposed tax also ignores the fact that this crisis is the result of a number of factors, including a deeply troubling influx of counterfeit fentanyl and other illegal drugs coming into the U.S. through drug trafficking organizations the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] is monitoring, which is contributing to an increase in overdose deaths.”

VanderVeer added that the organization “would welcome the opportunity” to meet with the Cuomo administration to come up with a plan to curb opioid use. Last fall, PhRMA announced support for some state and federal policies aimed at curbing abuse, including support for limiting opioid prescriptions to seven days for acute pain. In June 2016, the governor signed legislation into law that would reduce prescription limits for opioids for acute pain from 30 days to a seven-day supply.

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi countered PhRMA’s remarks, charging that the industry fueled the opioid epidemic.

“Big Pharma and the health insurance companies just got a big federal tax break while at the same time created the machine that ‎fueled the opioid crisis. Spare me the song and dance about corporations crying poverty, like the tobacco companies, this money is going to help fight the problem they created,” Azzopardi said in an email.

Azzopardi did not immediately say whether the 2-cent surtax would apply to opioid medications used to treat addiction, such as methadone or buprenorphine.

Cuomo is not the first to propose such a tax. Nan Whaley, the Democratic mayor of Dayton, Ohio, who had been running for governor, proposed a similar surcharge on prescription opioids. Hillary Clinton, in her 2016 presidential campaign, endorsed the idea of a 1-cent-per-milligram tax on opioid prescriptions paid by the manufacturer or importer, according to an Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld compilation of the candidates’ tax proposals.

Earlier this month, during his State of the State address to the Legislature, Cuomo announced plans to sue pharmaceutical companies for “perpetuating the opioid epidemic.”  The Democratic governor’s remarks come as a growing number of counties in New York and across the United States have sued the makers of opioid medications.

“[Pharmaceutical companies] were conveniently blind to the consequences of their action. They pumped these pills into society and created addiction. Like the tobacco industry they killed thousands. … We will make them pay,” Cuomo said earlier this month.

Since it is commonly believed that addictions are a mental health disease and not a moral failing… So Gov Cuomo apparently believes that it constitutional, moral and rational to charge a certain segment of people with a chronic condition – requiring the use of opiates – to pay a tax on their medically necessary therapy to help pay for the therapy for another segment of our population suffering from a different chronic health  issue.  Gov Cuomo tries to “pass the buck” that it will be paid for by the manufacturer.. Apparently Gov Cuomo has never heard the fact that corporations DON’T PAY TAXES.. PEOPLE PAY TAXES… whatever costs a bureaucracy imposes on a corporation.. it will be passed along to final purchaser of the product/service the corporation provides.

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AG Session… wants a CHILD to suffer with epilepsy rather than be able to use MMJ ?

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

Jeff Sessions’s War on Pot Goes to Court, Attorney General Will Fight 12-Year-Old With Epilepsy

http://www.newsweek.com/jeff-sessions-war-pot-goes-court-attorney-general-will-fight-12-year-old-780749

A 12-year-old suing the federal government may have a whiff of adorableness. But for Alexis Bortell, who filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Jeff Sessions last fall, it’s a choice she had to make to save her life. Alexis has epilepsy, and Sessions has made it his mission to make it impossible for her to access the only drug that has kept her seizures at bay: cannabis. 

A Scream of Terror

Alexis doesn’t remember her first seizure. But her father, Dean Bortell, does. 

“We were literally folding clothes, and Alexis was sleeping on the couch,” Bortell told Newsweek. “All of a sudden, I heard her make this shriek—I mean, it was a scream of terror,” he said. “I look over, and Alexis is stiff as a board, on her back, spasming.” 

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At first, Bortell suspected his daughter had a brain-eating amoeba on account of headlines about them that summer and took her to the hospital. Within hours, it became clear something else was wrong. Alexis was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2013.

Three years ago, Alexis began taking medical marijuana, and her seizures disappeared. But that treatment option is threatened by an aggressive federal crackdown on medicinal cannabis led by Sessions, who is also the acting director of the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

Her day in court—February 14, at a New York City federal courthouse—is fast approaching. Alexis won’t be there in person, but her lawyer, Michael Hiller, thinks the ruling will go their way. 

“We are very optimistic that the case is going to come out the way it should, which is that the Controlled Substances Act is going to be found unconstitutional,” Hiller said. Several other plaintiffs—a former professional football player, a veteran and another child—are also included.

AlexisInThePatchesOfHopeGardenBeforeGroundBreaking Alexis Bortell stands in a field in this undated photo. Courtesy of the Bortell Family

Out of Options

The basic outline of Alexis’s story has been well reported: Horrible seizures forced her family to move to Colorado from Texas, where she could use products with compounds derived from marijuana. But due to the concentration of THC, also known as tetrahydrocannabinol, in one of the products she uses, Alexis is unable to cross state lines, board an airplane or set foot on a military base or in other federal buildings and lands.

Biologically, Alexis’s problem begins in the left frontal lobe of her brain. Normally, brain cells communicate with one another using electrical and chemical signals. Epileptic seizures happen when those signals go haywire.

Anyone familiar with epilepsy knows that’s a fairly muted description. These rogue cells can create something terrifying to experience or watch, and you can’t know when the next seizure will strike. It can be “frustratingly random,” Bortell said.

These brain signals can also spark a long-term relationship with one’s local neurologist or hospital as patients and doctors figure out what is happening. But that’s only half the battle; controlling the seizures is the other. For many people with epilepsy, one of the various kinds of prescription drugs available will work. But finding the right one or the right combination can take time. “They try to go mild to wild,” Bortell said.

At home in Texas, none of the mild stuff worked for Alexis. Giving two medications a real shot and having them both fail is usually enough for doctors to call a person’s epilepsy intractable; in other words, unresponsive to drugs. Alexis tried at least 20 different doses or combinations, her father said. She also experienced some extreme side effects from conventional medications. 

She had two final options in Texas: See if she was a candidate for surgery to remove the brain tissue where the seizures began or try one last medication, Felbatol. This drug carries a “black box warning,” the most serious kind the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will put on a label to flag extremely dangerous side effects. In this case, Felbatol has been associated with a serious bone marrow disorder and liver failure.

The family decided on Felbatol. But on the way to fill the prescription, their pediatrician called them and suggested they try something else. Weeks later, the Bortells packed their bags and drove to Colorado, ready to try a different course of treatment: a tincture of cannabidiol (a compound found in marijuana that isn’t responsible for a high) and a spray with THC (the compound that is). The CBD tincture tastes “bad and earthy,” Alexis told Newsweek, but it’s been working. She still gets auras, the warning signs that a seizure is about to hit, but she hasn’t had a full-blown episode in the past three years. Her father says the only side effect is the constant threat of federal law enforcement.

AlexisandMomInHempGreenHouse Alexis Bortell, left, and her mother stand in a hemp greenhouse in this undated photo. Courtesy of the Bortell Family

Safer Than Seizures

Some science backs up Alexis’s treatment plan. Clinical trials have shown that CBD can be useful to treat seizure disorders, but we’re still learning why it works. CBD could be working along about a dozen different pathways and receptors, said Dr. Jerzy Szaflarski, the director of the epilepsy center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. (Coincidentally, that’s the same state university system from which Sessions earned his law degree.) Exactly how many might be related to epilepsy isn’t entirely clear. “The evidence for each and every one of those pathways is there but it’s relatively weak,” Szaflarski said. “It’s going to take a while before we sort this out.”

The evidence is stronger for CBD as an anti-seizure medication than for THC, he noted. “It doesn’t mean that THC doesn’t work for seizures,” said Szaflarski. “It just means that we have much less data because we’ve been studying this much less.”

Despite their utility, these products aren’t without risk, Szaflarski noted. The concentration of CBD in some products available on store shelves can vary from batch to batch. These drugs may interact with traditional anti-seizure medications, changing the amount of the drug found in a person’s blood. And some studies have linked early THC exposure to lower IQs and behavioral problems.

But, Szaflarski noted, “the question is, Do these problems that we see that develop through the use of cannabis outweigh the risk of epilepsy?” For Alexis, the answer is clear: Her drugs are safer than having continued seizures.

A Violation of the Constitution

The government disagrees. It says marijuana has no medical applications whatsoever and is accordingly listed by the DEA as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, first passed in 1970. 

That entire act is what Alexis, her co-plaintiffs and Hiller, her lawyer, are challenging. Hiller took the case pro-bono and has written a brief that, at 98 pages, is the longest of his career. The document lays out the basic reasons why he believes the act is unconstitutional. Specifically, the case claims the act violates Americans’ fundamental right to travel, as well as the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and the First, Fifth, Ninth and 14th amendments.

Hiller believes the case could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s impossible to say what the outcome of the case will actually be until a judge hears the arguments and makes a ruling. But while Alexis and her family wait for that outcome, they are on increasingly uncertain ground.

On January 4, Sessions rescinded the Cole memorandum, an Obama-era directive to U.S. attorneys ordering them to focus on prosecuting major distributors and more serious marijuana-related offenses, such as selling to minors. The Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, renewed in December, is also set to expire on January 19. That amendment prevents the Justice Department from using its funding to keep states from implementing medical marijuana laws.

That amendment is likely to be renewed, Hiller said. Senator Elizabeth Warren has also announced plans to introduce legislation that could have the same effect as the Cole memo. But that’s little comfort to the Bortells—a family that just wants to help their child use the one thing that’s worked for her epilepsy.

“No one else is living memo to memo or administration to administration,” Bortell said. “I don’t think asking for my daughter to have that long-term plan for her life—I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

This article has been updated to clarify the medical treatment Alexis received after her first seizure.

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Civil asset forfeiture is an unconstitutional practice whereby the government takes people’s property without due process

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

Bill Introduced to Stop Civil Forfeiture Funding of DEA Marijuana Eradication Program

“DEA’s use of proceeds acquired through civil asset forfeiture to expand marijuana enforcement makes the already unacceptable practice even worse.”

http://reason.com/blog/2018/01/18/bill-introduced-to-stop-civil-forfeiture

Citing waste of taxpayer dollars, shifting public opinion, and constitutional concerns, Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.) have introduced a bill in Congress that would block funds from the federal government’s controversial asset forfeiture fund from being used for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) marijuana eradication program.

The Stop Civil Asset Forfeiture Funding for Marijuana Suppression Act, first introduced in 2015, would use Congress’ power of the purse to block money from the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture Fund from being used to support the DEA’s Domestic Cannabis Suppression/Eradication Program.

According to the DEA, the program was responsible in 2016 for the eradication of more than 5 million marijuana plants, more than 5,000 arrests, and the seizure of more than of $51 million from marijuana cultivators.

For example, in 2009 federal prosecutors unsuccessfully fought to seize a farm from an Alabama woman after her husband was caught growing marijuana on the property. Her husband, who said he used the marijuana to manage chronic pain, committed suicide during his trial in a last-ditch attempt to keep the farm in family hands, as it had been for generations. His wife was never charged with a crime.

“Civil asset forfeiture is an unconstitutional practice whereby the government takes people’s property without due process,” Amash, one of the more libertarian members of Congress, said in a joint statement with Lieu. “The DEA’s use of proceeds acquired through civil asset forfeiture to expand marijuana enforcement—a state-level issue—makes the already unacceptable practice even worse.”

Lieu called the DEA eradication program “a waste of time and money and runs contrary to the will of the people.”

“The Federal Government has a responsibility to spend taxpayer money wisely,” he said. “Instead, A.G. Jeff Sessions would rather waste federal dollars by attacking marijuana, which has been legalized either for medical or recreational use in the majority of states in the U.S.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a longtime supporter of the drug war, recently rescinded Obama-era guidance to U.S Attorneys on marijuana enforcement, sparking fears of a federal crackdown on the drug, which is now legal at the state level for recreational use in eight states and the District of Columbia.

A new poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy and released by Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), an anti-legalization group, found that only 16 percent of Americans support keeping the current federal policy on marijuana, while 49 percent favor full legalization for recreational use.

The bill also has the support of marijuana legalization groups.

“Never in modern history has there existed greater public support for ending the nation’s nearly century-long experiment with marijuana prohibition,” Justin Strekal, the political director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said in a statement. “With eight states and the District of Columbia now having legalized its personal use and 30 states having legalized medical marijuana, it is time that the DEA cease interfering with state-legal programs and stop wasting taxpayer dollars that would be better directed at going after the pill-mills contributing to the nations opioid crisis.”

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First it was tobacco, then the Pharmas and now oil.. alcohol can’t be far behind… then what legal industry is next ?

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

https://youtu.be/6Pnq9FwFr_I

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Could put thousands of otherwise innocent Americans into locked treatment units

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

New Laws Force Drug Users Into Rehab Against Their Will

https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-laws-force-drug-users-into-rehab-against-their-will

Involuntary commitment laws are being opened up to allow some people to be detained for overdosing or even having visible track marks—in some cases up to 90 days.

Debra Hicks went to work on Sept. 19, 2011, to teach California high school students about the Constitution. But that night she got a crash course on how easily her own civil rights could be violated, when she overdosed on her pain pills and a psychiatrist she’d never met involuntary committed her to Glendale Adventist Medical Center, near Los Angeles.

By the time she was released six days later, Hicks claims she had been placed in five-point restraints and “forcibly and unwillingly subjected to the use of strong antipsychotic medications”—according to an ongoing lawsuit against the facility.

Her only “crime,” she says, was having a bad reaction to her doctor-prescribed opioid medication.

Now lawmakers in at least eight states are considering bills that would make it even easier for drug users like Hicks to be forced into treatment against their will.

Proponents insist the bills are an unfortunate but necessary response to a troubling rise in the number of Americans dying from drugs like Oxycontin and heroin. But patients rights advocates say involuntary commitment is an overly extreme measure that will only make addicts’ lives worse.

Meanwhile, the private prison industry is waiting quietly in the wings, sensing an opportunity to get new business in the wake of declining prison populations.

 “The idea of using the criminal justice system or civil commitment to compel drug users to accept treatment is ridiculous,” said Dr. Mark Willenbring, an internationally recognized addiction psychiatrist and founder of the Alltyr clinic in Minnesota. “Why aren’t we incarcerating people with heart disease who continue to smoke or people with diabetes who don’t manage their diet?”

According to the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, 37 states already have statutes that allow substance abusers who have not committed a crime to be briefly detained against their will. In most cases the legal bar is high—often requiring a finding that the person being committed has threatened to harm themselves or another person.

Over the past several years, however, states have been quietly revising their laws to allow for longer periods of commitment with fewer legal hurdles.

Kentucky and Ohio led the push. And in 2015 Mike Pence signed a law permitting involuntary commitment for drug users in Indiana.

Last year, Florida followed suit, passing a new measure that allows individuals with substance abuse problems to be held up to 90 days against their will. A petition can be filed by “any adult with direct personal observed knowledge of the respondent’s impairment,” and must only show probable cause that the individual has “lost the power of self-control with respect to substance abuse” and are “incapable of making a rational decision regarding his or her need for care.”

Lawmakers in New Jersey have been trying for the past two years to get a similar measure on the books there. The latest iteration of the bill, introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Joseph Lagana (Paramus), would allow a police officer with no addiction training to detain a person if they have “reasonable cause” to believe that the person is in need of involuntary treatment.

 A bill proposed this session in the Washington Senate would expand civil commitment to include individuals who have had three or more arrests “related to activities connected to substance abuse,” who have ever been in rehab or detox, or who have three or more visible track marks (PDF).

Three such bills are currently being considered in Pennsylvania, including one that would permit forced treatment for any individual who “has ingested an amount of drugs as to render himself unconscious or in need of medical treatment to prevent imminent death or serious bodily harm.”

Like many of the new measures, the bill would authorize up to 90 days of involuntary inpatient drug treatment.

Since most addicts are not “severely mentally impaired,” legal experts say that once they are detoxed it will become increasingly difficult to justify involuntary detention. That means that, in practice, the period of commitment is likely to be much shorter.

Addiction experts say that could actually lead to an increased risk of overdose, as drug users return to the community without the physical tolerance they had only days or weeks earlier.

“Often what will happen is that people will remain sober through treatment but then rapidly return to use as soon as they are out,” said Kirk Bowden, a certified addiction clinician and the former president of the Association for Addiction Professionals.

Lawmakers in New Hampshire, Alabama, Maryland, Michigan, and Mississippi are also considering broad civil commitment measures this session.

David Freed, district attorney for Cumberland County, Pennsylvania—where overdose fatalities doubled in 2016—supports the measure, and says states have a “moral obligation” to help drug addicts who he says won’t help themselves.

“The process should be seamless. It should be standard, and frankly, it should not be optional,” he testified last year.

But morality and medicine are frequently at odds, as Hicks’ case shows.

Like millions of other Americans, Hicks suffers from chronic pain issues, including fibromyalgia—a painful nerve condition—three herniated disks and two pinched nerves.

Her treatment includes seeing a pain management specialist, and taking prescribed medications that include opioid painkillers.

According to a lawsuit she filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, on the day her ordeal began Hicks had forgotten to take her morning dose of painkillers. As the hours wore on she found herself in increasing physical distress. By the time she got home that evening she says she was experiencing severe pain, and erroneously believed she needed to take more than her prescribed dose to make up for the missed one.

Hicks’ roommate found her passed out on the floor of the apartment they shared and called 911.

Though she managed to walk to the ambulance that would take her to the emergency room, doctors there told Hicks that, as a matter of protocol, patients who have suffered a drug overdose must speak to a psychiatrist before being released.  

According to her lawsuit, Hicks waited nine hours after she was discharged from the emergency room before a nurse informed her she was being detained under a 1967 law that  gives psychiatrists in California limited powers to hold a person who is dangerous to themselves or others due to mental illness against their will for up to 14 days.

Hospital records attached to Hicks’ lawsuit say her only formal diagnosis was “depression.” When Hicks attempted to leave the hospital—a full 24 hours after being released from the ER—she was chased down and brought back by local police and hospital security guards, she asserts in her complaint.

“The Hicks case is a dramatic example of how a person can be captured into a system by people who pretend to be trained to help but actually completely misunderstand the process,” said Hicks’ attorney, Gary S. Brown, in an email to The Daily Beast.

In court filings, the hospital does not dispute the facts of the case, but argues that it is immune from civil action under California’s civil commitment law—which requires only a finding of probable cause that an individual is a danger to themselves.

Brown, who has spent the better part of three decades defending clients who’ve been involuntarily committed, says that while patients can challenge that finding in court after a few days of confinement, the odds are often stacked against them.

While forcing substance abusers into treatment may provide temporary relief for family members who are dealing with an addicted loved one, experts say it offers little help for the person actually suffering from addiction.

A recent study published by the medical journal the Lancet found that heroin users forced into treatment “had significantly more rapid relapse to opioid use post-release” compared with those who voluntarily sought help.

Involuntary commitment also violates the ethics codes of some treatment organizations, such as the Association for Addiction Professionals (PDF).Meanwhile, detaining a person who has committed no crime based on what they might do in the future has potentially severe long-term repercussions.

“Involuntary commitment gives someone a lifelong marker that interferes with their ability to get health care coverage or own a firearm, and it could prevent them from getting certain jobs, like federal employment,” said Mary Catherine Roper, of the the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

Once a civil commitment is on a person’s record, Roper says, it’s nearly impossible to get it expunged.

But there’s another, more pressing problem with involuntary commitment for substance abuse: Most states don’t have enough treatment beds even for the people who want them.

Massachusetts—which has permitted courts to force drug users into treatment for more than two decades—has so little bed space for drug addicts seeking help that those compelled into treatment are often sent to one of two state correctional facilities instead. Last year, the state actually had to pass a law to ensure that women who are involuntarily detained for drug abuse go to an actual treatment facility instead of jail.

Doctors say giving precedence to drug addicts who don’t want treatment will almost certainly make it harder for those who do want treatment to access it.

“There are waiting lists for treatment right now,” said Dr. Raymond Bobb, an addiction doctor in Philadelphia who treats patients with methadone and Suboxone. “Plenty of people are seeking treatment and waiting for spots to open up, do these people supersede them?”

That has caught the attention of the private prison industry—which has been refocusing its efforts on treatment and reentry services as states have moved to reduce the number of inmates in their correctional systems.ennsylvania lacks any secure drug treatment facilities—with the exception of those currently contracted by the Department of Corrections. In February, Gov. Tom Wolf announced the state would cut $40 million from its community corrections budget and plans to eliminate 1,500 halfway house beds.  

Weeks later private prison firm The GEO Group completed its $360 million acquisition of Community Education Centers, which operates five residential reentry facilities in Pennsylvania. The GEO Group spent more than $112,000 lobbying lawmakers in Harrisburg over the past 12 months.

Correct Care Recovery Solutions (CCRS), a subsidiary spun off by GEO Group in 2013, also operates residential psychiatric treatment hospitals, as well as the only privatized civil commitment facility in the country (in Florida). In addition to Pennsylvania, the company manages facilities in several states where civil commitment measures are being considered.

New laws that would put thousands of otherwise innocent Americans into locked treatment units could potentially be a windfall for the company and others like it. But like so many other failed policies in the War on Drugs, it will be the most desperate and marginalized Americans who will pay the price.

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Ravenna eyes fees for marijuana businesses

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Pharmaciststeve

http://www.record-courier.com/news/20180117/ravenna-eyes-fees-for-marijuana-businesses

Ravenna City Council is considering imposing a $25,000 licensing fee for any medical marijuana-related businesses that might operate in the city after learning that all taxes from such a business would go to the state.

Council’s Community and Economic Development committee recently discussed the potential fee. Councilman Andrew Kluge said Lakewood implemented an identical fee for such businesses. Akron, he said, implemented a fee of $60,000 for businesses related to the new medical marijuana program in the city limits.

Under the state program, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy is issuing licenses to cultivators, processing plants and dispensaries throughout the state.

Geauga County businessman Tom Hobson recently got the green light from the state to open a cultivation business at 4000 Lake Rockwell Road in Ravenna Township. FN Group Holdings, LLC, which is doing business as Wellspring Fields, will be owned by Hobson’s daughter, Claire, and his son, Spencer. The group holds the only cultivation license issued in Portage County, and reportedly applied for a processing license, an application that is pending.

Groups have approached Ravenna City Engineer Bob Finney about operating dispensaries in city limits. Council members implemented legislation to pave the way for such businesses, and some council members expressed hope that the city would benefit from the taxes generated by the new enterprises.

However, officials later learned that the taxes would go back to the state, and the city would have little to gain from such a business locating in the city.

That’s why some cities are implementing licensing fees, reasoning that most medical marijuana businesses have already paid much higher fees at the state level to obtain their licenses. Under Ravenna’s plan, the fee would be charged annually for five years, and could possibly drop in the years after that.

Kluge said the money would go into the city’s general fund. From there, the money can be used toward other purposes, such as drug education.

Councilman Rob Kairis said he doesn’t object to the fee, but thinks talk about drug education misses the point.

 “This is something that is meant for medical purposes for specific conditions,” he said. He suggested directing the fees toward the city’s safety forces instead.

He pointed out that Kent is looking at ending its moratorium, and Streetsboro seems to be reversing its proposed ban on the program.

“There is competition out there,” he said.

Councilman Scott Rainone said he read about a similar enterprise out of state that paid a $25,000 fee, but sued when that city raised its fee by $100,000.

“If it’s low enough, they see that fee as the cost of doing business,” he said.

Council President Joseph Bica pointed out that a fee of $50,000 is roughly equivalent to the entry-level salary of a police officer.

Councilwoman Amy Michael said the city should think carefully before deciding how much the fee should be.

“Whatever we go in at, we’re going to be there for a very long time,” she said.

All these bureaucrats can see is a “cash cow”… they are too myopic to see that taxing the crap out of a legit MMJ business will just allow those selling MJ on the street to be able to UNDER CUT the price of the product from the legal distributor… because they have no legal taxes and the cost of permits to the state and any other middleman bureaucracy  to pay…  Remember there is no education required or previous experience to be an elected or appointed bureaucrat and these bureaucrats in Ohio seem to be clearly demonstrating why there should be.

 

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