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Showing posts from May, 2016

Opioid Prescriptions Down; Deaths Up, NY Times reports

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/health/opioid-prescriptions-drop-for-first-time-in-two-decades.html?_r=0 (excerpts) "...for each of the past three years — 2013, 2014 and 2015 — prescriptions have declined, a review of several sources of data shows." " IMS Health, an information firm whose data on prescribing is used throughout the health care industry, found a 12 percent decline in opioid prescriptions nationally since a peak in 2012. Another data company, Symphony Health Solutions, reported a drop of about 18 percent during those years. Opioid prescriptions have fallen in 49 states since 2013, according to IMS, with some of the sharpest decreases coming in West Virginia, the state considered the center of the opioid epidemic, and in Texas and Oklahoma. (Only South Dakota showed an increase.)" ... ... One important development that may have helped propel the decline came in 2014, when the federal government tightened prescribing rules for one of the most c

Trump To Accept Funding Via 'Straight' Drug War Fanatic Mel Sembler

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Trump has abandoned his earlier idea of being self-funded. http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/US-GOP-2016-Trump-Money/2016/05/24/id/730470/?ns_mail_uid=7499169&ns_mail_job=1669680_05242016&s=al&dkt_nbr=tiwkw91r Trump and the RNC on Tuesday announced new additions to the financial operation, including New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, roofing company owner Diane Hendricks and former Ambassador Mel Sembler, who helped raise major money for previous presidential candidates. About Mel Sembler's assault on freedom of medicine and diet, particularly Cannabis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Sembler In 1976, Sembler and his wife Betty founded Straight, Inc. , an adolescent drug treatment program which has treated more than 12,000 addicts. The group now operates as the Drug Free America Foundation. [18] In May 1983, Straight, Inc was convicted of false imprisonment after being sued by then 20-year-old Fred Collins Jr, who alleged he had been held captive by the program a