http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/local/2-wants-to-know/dont-get-stuck-in-a-hurricane-without-your-medicine/474206525

What do you take with you in an emergency? Clothing? Documents? Photos? Consumer Reports warns you should have your prescription medications too. Before disaster strikes, make sure you have all the medications you need on hand. But if you end up stuck without them, you should head to your nearest pharmacy as soon as it is safe.

CR says you should keep a list of all your medications along with the dosing info. If you have to evacuate, take all your drugs with you, in their original containers with the original labels. You’ll want to put them in a watertight bag.

If your medication is damaged, throw out anything that’s wet or looks or smells different — they may be contaminated by floodwaters, and dangerous to take.

“Once a state of emergency has been declared, in certain states, a pharmacist can give you up to
a 30-day supply of your medication without your doctor’s authorization,” Trisha Calvo, Consumer Reports Health Editor said.

The Red Cross and other disaster recovery agencies can assist with getting medication during and following disasters.

2 Wants to Know reached out to the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy to see what the rule is here. Jay Campbell told us pharmacists are allowed to give you up to a 90 day supply once state of emergency is declared.

He added that during Hurricane Matthew folks had to go to pharmacies they usually didn’t go to. So it’s important for you have the original bottle with all of the information.

Without it, the pharmacist doesn’t really know what you need. There’s also a state law that requires your insurance company to cover the costs

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Opioid maker cites FDA decisions in defense against Ohio lawsuit

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opioid-maker-cites-fda-decisions-in-defense-against-ohio-lawsuit/article/2634006

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Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to join Trump’s drug commission next week

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/florida-attorney-general-pam-bondi-to-join-trumps-drug-commission-next-week/article/2633789

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Opioid litigation shouldn’t profit lawyers over patients

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/349960-opioid-litigation-shouldnt-profit-lawyers-over-patients

President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency, following a recommendation from a White House commission led by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie that urged the president to do just that.

Last month, the commission wrote in a report that more than 100 Americans die of drug overdoses every day, meaning America is “enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks.” To address this problem successfully, elected policymakers, the expert regulators they appoint, the medical and scientific communities, and law enforcement must work cooperatively to advance the interests of public health and safety. That must be their sole focus.

Unfortunately, a number of states, counties and municipalities have filed lawsuits in recent weeks demanding that manufacturers, wholesale drug distributors and pharmacies pay for the clean-up of the problem.

Never mind that these products were approved for sale by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and their production quotas were annually increased and approved by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and these very same states have always had regulatory authority over the physicians and pharmacies that prescribed and dispensed the products. It’s always easier to pass the buck.

Perhaps equally predictably most of these same governments have decided to pursue litigation at the urging of plaintiff lawyers who stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars if they are successful. Typically, these arrangements pay plaintiff lawyers roughly one-third of the take plus their expenses. As a result, the incentive for plaintiff lawyers is to maximize their fees irrespective of the public interest.

Strong evidence of this problem can be found in investigations by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board and a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series. Such reporting has shown how personal injury lawyers often shop their ideas for potentially lucrative lawsuits against corporate defendants to friendly governmental officials, most prominently state attorneys general, whom they also support with generous campaign contributions.  

Lawsuits brought by powerful state or local governments must serve the public interest, and not merely the profit-seeking interests of politically influential members of the plaintiffs’ bar.

Drawing a bright line between these obviously conflicting interests has been a policy priority for the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) for more than a decade, animating our drive to enact commonsense statutes — in 18 states thus far — that promote accountability and transparency when public authorities feel compelled to hire outside counsel to initiate major litigation.

In fact, ATRA was part of the successful 2015 effort to enact such a statute in Ohio, where Attorney General Mike DeWine has hired outside counsel as “consultants” in his lawsuit against makers of opioid pain medications.

Among those consultants is former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, whose private-sector associates in precedent-setting, multistate litigation against tobacco companies 20 years ago were widely reported to have netted more than $1.6 billion in fees without ever providing citizens a full accounting of the work they performed.

ATRA has also worked to develop common sense reforms, like limits on contingency fees and greater transparency in government contracting for private lawyers.

ATRA urges lawmakers across the country to work together to pass common sense reforms that would rein in the potential for abuse and corruption that comes when governments hand over the power of the state to private lawyers looking only for personal enrichment.

Attorneys general and other government officials who bring these cases put their reputations and the integrity of their offices at risk when they rely on the private contingency fee lawyers to represent the public interest. Moreover, it is essential that, as with broader policymaking, any litigation must serve the public interest, not the profit motives of outside counsel.

Tiger Joyce is president of the American Tort Reform Association in Washington, D.C.

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House Rules Chairman Commits an Immoral Act

www.marijuanapolitics.com/house-rules-chairman-commits-immoral-act/

Pete Sessions, chair of the hugely powerful Rules Committee of the US House of Representatives, committed a highly immoral act.

This Congressman, along with others in the committee, blocked several pro-cannabis amendments from full House votes, killing them. For years, medical marijuana users and their industry have been protected from federal persecution by amendments penned by Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and other freedom loving members of the House, such as Oregon’s Earl Blumenauer and Colorado’s Jared Polis.

Such protections were the product of years of struggle and state votes for medical legalization going back to California’s landmark passage of medical marijuana in 1996. For three years now, the Department of Justice, including the DEA, have been prevented from spending any money to crush these state legalizations. Each congress saw ever-increasing votes of members of the House of Representatives securing these vital protections. Now all these years of progress and state votes for medical legalization are jeopardized by the real possibility of renewed raids by federal jackboot thugs.

Pete Sessions’ enormous power, as chair of the Rules Committee, to ignore arbitrarily the will and well-being of Americans citizens is nauseating. The Texas (surprise) Republican (surprise) appears to be granting the wish of Attorney General Jeff Sessions who recently demanded these protections be dropped.

The actions by Chairman Pete Sessions to deny congressional input into American medical marijuana policy was immoral for many reasons. The absence of these protections,

• Sets up road blocks to what might just be the best answer to America’s lethal opioid crisis.
• Further challenges the lives and families of medical cannabis refugees who uprooted from ignorant states to those with medical cannabis programs for cannabis treatment of conditions like juvenile epilepsy. Many children have found life-saving relief in medically legal states.
• Denys Americans basic health choices. Instead of a decision between you and your doctor, the end of these protections allows federal police to determine what medications you and your family can access.
• Violates the will of the American voters. By overwhelming numbers, Americans believe state medical legalizations should not be harassed by the feds.
• Infringes state’s rights by allowing federal thugs to mug the will of voters in medically legal states.

Other pro-cannabis amendments were dropped at the same time, including protections for hemp farming, access to banking, and easing restrictions that have stifled cannabis health research for nearly five decades. Fortunately, the current protections got a short reprieve, and the Senate may act to help achieve and restore these human rights.

Congressman Pete Sessions: protecting your gun rights, immorally violating your rights to health, liberty, and a meaningful vote.

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Palm Coast man charged with ‘assisting self-murder’

http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20170816/palm-coast-man-charged-with-assisting-self-murder

PALM COAST — A Palm Coast man accused of helping his girlfriend kill herself after the couple made a “suicide pact” that led to her death while he survived was arrested Wednesday by Flagler County sheriff’s deputies and charged with “assisting self-murder.”

According to a department spokesperson, Bruce Haughton and his 52-year-old girlfriend, Katherine Goddard, tried to kill themselves by carbon monoxide poisoning on two occasions in June. Goddard died during the second attempt while Haughton survived both attempts.

Haughton, 52, had turned himself in to Flagler deputies Monday on charges tied to an unrelated case of criminal mischief, court records show. He was released from jail on that charge Tuesday before officers re-arrested him Wednesday on the new charge, according to booking records. He is being held without bail at the Flagler County jail, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Assisting self-murder is a second-degree felony manslaughter charge punishable by up to 15 years in prison, according to state statutes.

Investigators allege Goddard and Haughton made a pact to kill themselves when they stopped using prescription pain medication, and they tried to do so on June 29 and 30. Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Brittany Kershaw indicated Haughton planned the attempts, placing duct tape around the garage door of Goddard’s Red Clover Lane home in Palm Coast and affixing a dryer vent to the exhaust pipe of a vehicle in an attempt to fill the car with carbon monoxide.

Kershaw said the vehicle’s battery died on the couple’s first attempt, so they bought sleeping aids that night and tried again the following day.

Goddard’s daughter came home from work and found the couple unresponsive inside the vehicle June 30 and called 9-1-1.

“I just got home and I just found my mom and my step-dad in the garage, in the car,” she said, “and I don’t know if the car’s been on or what but … he’s barely breathing and I can’t get a pulse off of her.”

In the call, as the 9-1-1 operator asked her if she thought it was intentional, the

daughter found and read a note.

“Due to the pain we are both in and can’t get help, this is the only way we can see getting out of it. Goodbye to everybody,” she read.

Goddard was dead by the time deputies arrived and Haughton was transported to Florida Hospital Flagler, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Haughton had 3 percent blood-level of carboxyhemoglobin, or COHb, at the time, according to investigators, who noted that Haughton is a smoker. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that COHb levels must be elevated to at least 9 percent to warrant a carbon monoxide poisoning diagnosis for smokers.

Sheriff Rick Staly said Haughton’s blood levels of COHb were much lower than Goddard’s. Kershaw said Goddard was also a smoker. She didn’t know Goddard’s exact COHb level but said it was “very high” and her body already showed signs of rigor mortis, while Haughton was still breathing when deputies arrived.

Staly said those types of discrepancies aroused the suspicions of investigators, who presented their evidence to the State Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors determined the assisted self-murder charge was most appropriate.

“There were a lot of unusual circumstances in this case, but the state felt that that was the appropriate charge,” Staly said. “There’s insufficient evidence to charge him with murder. Although there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that would indicate this case is more than the charge.”

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From the desk of Cathy Jordan, FLCAN President. Click to visit home page.

http://takeaction.realreformact.com/o/2012/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1377150

My thoughts are with you..

When I think about evacuating, cannabis is a big concern.

Whether you are a qualified patient using cannabis from a Medical Marijuana Treatment Center (MMTC) or using cannabis from a trusted source, evacuating with cannabis is a traumatic choice.

Legal patients with medication from an MMTC are on my mind today. Several of the southern dispensaries have already closed for storm preparation. I’ve asked several law-makers what patients should do and have gotten no response so far.

Using cannabis in a shelter is a legally grey area. The Morgan Amendment specifically bans public consumption of cannabis. Shelters are by their very nature PUBLIC. Lawmakers have made an exception to the public consumption ban for school-aged children using low-THC. No one considered what happens if a patient needs to take shelter during a mandatory or voluntary evacuation. Senator Bradley was quoted last year saying he didn’t believe a patient would be arrested for using legal cannabis in an emergency.

Based on FLCAN’s experience, here is what we recommend:

If you are a legal patient:

Take your letter of recommendation from your doctor, and/or your Health Department card with you during the evacuation.
If you are evacuating out of state, unless the state where you stay has a reciprocal agreement in their medical marijuana law, you face the same penalties as any other cannabis user in that state. Your medical card will give you a defense.
Bring a three week supply of your medication in original containers, like any other medicine.
If you intend to use a vaporizer pen to administer your cannabis medication, identify yourself as a special needs patient when checking into a shelter.
If you are using other forms of cannabis from an MMTC there is no reason to identify yourself; if asked, don’t lie.

A legal patient who follows the above steps should have no problem safely using their recommended dose of cannabis during the evacuation. IF you or someone you love does have problems during the evacuation related to using lawfully recommended cannabis contact Florida CAN.

State medical cannabis programs are expanded through the courts. Whether you stay, leave or take an arrest, a patient who is denied the right to use cannabis when seeking shelter from a hurricane will have a day in court.

Here are some suggestions to aid in your defense or a legal challenge:

Decide if you are going to comply and stay in the shelter; leave the shelter with your medicine or face an arrest in advance. If you are considering an arrest, have an arrest plan.
Put things in writing. Start a detailed log or journal about the encounter – who, what, when, and where – while it is fresh in your mind.
Get names and contact information of witnesses.
Write down the time, date and name of each ‘official’ you encounter even if they are only an official volunteer.

We are actively seeking attorneys who will defend patients should their rights be denied.

Here at Florida Cannabis Action Network, we care about people who need to use cannabis, those who want to use cannabis, and those who are already using cannabis ahead of the law.

Lawmakers postponed the first week of committee hearings in Tallahassee, due to Hurricane Irma. We were prepared with a letter writing campaign for the Senate Health Committee on Opiates and planned to attend the hearing for updates from the Department of Health on the implementation of the new medical cannabis program.

We are asking for your help to fund our expenses in Tallahassee during the upcoming legislative session. It costs us over $20,000 annually to be your voice for cannabis consumers in Tallahassee. Businesses care about the bottom line; FLCAN cares about you.

Find shelter from the storm; believe in our power to overcome; and when we come out the other side, give generously to Florida CAN. We never want another person punished for their use of cannabis.

Be safe,

Jodi James,
Executive Director

Click To
READ MORE

Unsubscribe | About | Store | Contact | Become A Member Click to visit Florida CAN Facebook Click to visit Florida CAN Twitter

Florida Cannabis Action Network | Leading The Grassroots Since 1998
Anonymous Donations to P.O. Box 360653, Melbourne, FL 32936 | Tel: 321-253-3673

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DEA Head Will Resign In Light of All Those DEA Sex Parties

https://en.upost.info/31363939323638393932

Michele Leonhart, the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, is reportedly due to announce her resignation sometime very soon. Leonhart is said to be resigning over a scandal in which DEA agents attended sex parties paid for by drug cartels and oftentimes thrown in the DEA’s own taxpayer-funded living spaces.

Virtually every major TV news outlet seems to have been tipped off by an unnamed “senior White House official” that Leonhart is announcing her resignation; ABC news reports that the announcement could come as early as this afternoon.

Leonhart, who didn’t attend any drug-cartel-sponsored sex parties herself, has spent her career in law enforcement: she became a DEA agent in the 1980s, was the DEA’s first female Special Agent in Charge and was appointed as DEA administrator by President Obama in 2010. She ran into controversy even before the unfortunate sex party booboo, reportedly criticizing President Obama’s statement that marijuana is pretty similar to alcohol and saying that drug cartel violence in Mexico against children and civilians somehow means the drug war is working.

Leonhart’s resignation is not a surprise: last week, 22 members of the House Oversight Committee from both sides of the aisle issued a statement saying they’d lost confidence in her leadership. The statement called Leonhart “woefully unable to change or positively influence the pervasive ‘good old boy’ culture that exists throughout the agency.”

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This is AG Bondi on interview this AM on Fox News abt 10 AM (09/09/2017)… AG Bondi is talking about all the emergency regulation in Florida when there is an emergency.

One of those emergency regulations was issued by Gov Scott on Sept 5th

Gov. Rick Scott asks POTUS to declare pre-landfall emergency

Additionally, in response to the Governor’s Office Executive Order, OIR has notified all entities writing health insurance in the state of their statutory obligation to allow for early prescription refills. OIR is also coordinating with the Agency for Healthcare Administration and Department of Health.

AG Bondi states in this interview how it should be mandatory that all human beings should have access to ALL ESSENTIAL COMMODITIES.. According to Gov Scott’s Executive Order… that should include PRESCRIPTIONS.

AG Bondi gave out the phone number to her office to file complaints on businesses that fail to honor these emergency regulations  866-9-NOSCAM

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Genetic Panel Test May Help ID Optimal Opioid Dose Needs

http://www.empr.com/painweek-2017/multi-variant-opioid-dose-chronic-pain-at-risk-addiction/article/686840/

Some pain patients may require higher doses for pain control due to genetic variations found in their pain receptors

According to results of a study presented at PAINWeek 2017, a high percentage of severe chronic pain patients had genetic variations in dopamine receptors and a low variation in opioid receptors, possibly explaining why some patients may require increased doses of opioids for pain control.

The study performed genetic testing on 70 patients with severe chronic pain that were unresponsive to standard medical therapy and required >100mg/day of morphine equivalence for pain control. Buccal swab was used to obtain test samples and 16 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were analyzed. The 4 categories of genetic markers included in the panel were receptor binding and activity (including dopamine, opioid, serotonin, and galanin receptors), neurotransmitter transporters, central nervous system (CNS) enzymes, and cytochrome P450 enzymes. 

Results of the study found that genetic variations in the 3 dopamine receptors tested (DRD1, DRD4, DOR) were observed in 97 to 100% of patients included in the analysis. The study authors also reported that only 17 to 30% of patients were found to have genetic variations in the opioid receptors tested (OPRK1, OPRM1, and MUOR). Additionally, it was found that only the dopamine receptor makers had >90% genetic variation, suggesting that potent stimulation of the opioid receptors was required to obtain pain relief for these patients.

“These results suggest that since the dopaminergic pathway was defective, these pain patients relied on potent stimulation of their opioid receptors to obtain adequate pain relief,” the study authors add.

Based on the results of this study, some severe chronic pain patients may require higher doses of opioids for pain control due to genetic variations found in pain receptors. The study authors add, “These findings need to be investigated in other groups of pain patients who require high dose opioids to determine if dopaminergic defects are an underlying, genetic cause of high dose opioid requirements in some chronic pain patients.”

Read more of MPR’s coverage of PAINWeek 2017 by visiting the conference page.

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