Following are our most recent Facebook posts. Please go to our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/james.place.inc) to read additional posts.
New law regarding improved access to naloxone aka NARCAN.
Friends, here's the final information on how to get naloxone without a prescription. This life saving medication should be kept available for those with loved ones at risk, for anyone working or supporting those at risk....
The goal of access is to save lives. During my son's years of struggle my motto was simple: Where there is life there is hope.
Check it out and then take action if you even suspect it could save someone in need.
Much work has gone in to getting education into Maryland schools. Some areas have been more successful than others. Now we have the new StartTalking law...elementary through higher ed...about time!
www-baltimoresun-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-md-heroin-school-trainin...
In heroin fight, focus turns to educating young people
baltimoresun.com
Maryland's public schools are tweaking their drug-education lessons and colleges are preparing sessions for incoming students to comply with the Start Talking Maryland Act, which requires students to be taught about the dangers of heroin.
Friends, here is a much needed job position to support the work needed to be done with the opioid crisis. The successful candidate will be working in the Howard County Health Department.
Please share across your domains - closing date July 5th.
Your helping sharing the opportunity is greatly appreciated!
Opioid Project Administrator, Contingent II Grant-Funded
Center for Drug Policy and Enforcement
www.ubalt.edu/about-ub/offices-and-services/human-resources/jobs-at-ub.cfm?type=staff&posting=1245
Collaboration means learning and change. Here's one of many collaborative plans thatt can continue to help make effective change.
associationsnow.com/2017/06/colorado-hospital-opioid-safety-pilot/?utm_source=AN%2BDaily%2BNews&u...
Colorado Hospital Group Partners on Opioid Safety Pilot
associationsnow.com
In response to high levels of opioid use and abuse in the state, the Colorado Hospital Association launched an opioid safety pilot in a handful of hospitals.
TUNE IN FRIDAY: The President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Epidemic – First Meeting
This Friday, the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Epidemic will hold its first meeting at the White House. The President established the Commission to review the state of drug addiction and the opioid epidemic and make recommendations regarding how the Federal Government can best address this crisis.
The Commission’s members include New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (chair), Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, former U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy, and Dr. Bertha Madras of Harvard Medical School. The Commission’s first meeting will feature testimony from many stakeholder groups on the front lines of this epidemic.
The meeting will be live streamed on www.WhiteHouse.gov/live beginning at 12:30 PM EST.
More....
Following 10 years of funding through the Drug-Free Communities Grant Program, the Dover Coalition for Youth has had nearly three years of success sustaining all of the Coalition's previous activities. The Dover, NH-based coalition has received sustainability resources from a variety of sources, with significant assistance from their local healthcare facility, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital. The hospital partnership has resulted in the coalition being able to expand its response to the opioid problem in the community. They have developed policies for first responders, educated medical providers on substance use disorders, launched a prevention based media campaign, and have worked to install permanent medication drop boxes in the community, among other activities.
Over the 25 years of the coalition's existence, they have developed a level of expertise in creating and implementing a youth empowerment program. The youth component of the Coalition, called Dover Youth to Youth, has created over 100 radio and video PSAs; created local campaigns; and provides advocacy training for Coalitions throughout the US. This expertise has led to the coalition creating a youth empowerment toolkit and evaluating the program. Their youth empowerment model has been recognized by the State of New Hampshire as an evidence-based model and is being utilized by over 100 communities across the country. This has led to opportunities for the Dover Coalition to provide technical assistance to similar youth groups and an investment by their local United Way to create a network of youth empowerment groups in the seacoast region of NH in collaboration with Dover's program.
Learn more about ONDCP's grant programs here.
National Heroin Coordination Group Helps Lead International Drug Scheduling
ONDCP’s National Heroin Coordination Group (NHCG), along with the National Security Council (NSC), the State Department, and interagency partners, are spearheading international cooperation on drug issues between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It began with the first tri-lateral North American Drug Dialogue (NADD), a high-level meeting with Canadian and Mexican officials, last fall. One of the NADD's priorities was to develop tri-lateral responses and complementary activities to significantly reduce the availability of heroin, fentanyl, and fentanyl analogues on the North American continent. In March 2017, the NHCG led the development and hosted a follow-up series of technical workshops with U.S. Federal agencies and their Mexican and Canadian counterparts to improve the three countries’ shared understanding of the impact of heroin, fentanyl, and fentanyl analogues on the North American continent. As a result, meetings and trainings are ongoing and will take place in all three countries.
Additionally, the NHCG, again in concert with the NSC, the State Department, and interagency partners, developed fentanyl safe-handling guidelines for Federal, state, and local law enforcement, and was key to U.S.-led efforts to encourage the United Nations to internationally schedule two key fentanyl precursors, NPP and ANPP, at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna in March 2017.
ONDCP’s NHCG was established in 2015 and serves as an interagency hub for coordinating Federal government activities to significantly reduce the availability of heroin, fentanyl, and fentanyl analogues and overdose deaths in the U.S.
Please don't assume there is a simple answer/solution to the deadly opioid epidemic. One key aspect is how to pay for the care needed for this disease. Please do read this article from two who know this issue on deeply personal levels:
"What our senators — most of whom have been outspoken on solving the opioid crisis — must do in the coming weeks is make a fiscally (to say nothing of humanely) prudent decision: ensure that addiction remains a covered and accessible benefit in any health proposal moving forward.
Eliminating this coverage will force states and communities to pay dramatically in increased emergency room visits, lost productivity in the workplace, increased prison populations, and greater death rates. No other untreated health issue has the enormous public safety costs associated with it that addiction does."
thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/336731-trumpcares-fatal-flaw-making-addiction-coverage-...
TrumpCare’s fatal flaw — making addiction coverage a choice
thehill.com
OPINION | Communities will pay dearly if coverage for addiction treatment is left to consumer preference
For many of us we can only say "its about time!"
In time when news coverage feels so dramatic rather than educational and informative, this is fresh air!
"Language is complicated and often slow to change — and for a group that has been criminalized, fighting stigma and misinformation is a constant struggle. But when the media start treating people with addiction with the same respect that they use for other patients, perhaps the rest of America will start to accept that addiction is a medical problem and that moralizing and punishment have failed."
undark.org/article/associated-press-stylebook-addiction/?utm_content=buffer58b38&utm_medium=socia...
The AP Learns to Talk About Addiction. Will Other Media Follow?
undark.org
Its influential stylebook, followed by 15,000 members, discards "addict" and "alcoholic" for language that recognizes addiction as a medical disorder.
Part Two:
Kristy talks about Scotte...
www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-05-18/the-opioid-epidemic-from-punishing-users-to...
From Punishing Users to Treating a Disease
usnews.com
Addressing addiction has changed from force to care as the opioid epidemic has exponentially grown.
Our loved ones who suffer as well as the countless ones who have died as a result of Substance Use Disorder matter - they are not only statistics.
And, so we open our hearts, tell our stories and theirs to educate, to make this epidemic real and not a news cycle spin.
Proud of my heart sister, Kristy Flower who shared about her beloved brother Scotte, too. Together we are all better!
www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-05-18/the-opioid-epidemic-a-personal-look-at-a-na...
A Personal Look at a National Problem
usnews.com
Four families share their stories about how the national opioid epidemic has affected their lives.
This week's Regional Opioid and Substance Abuse Summit had a lot of great presentations. My favorite will always be the parent who tells the story of love, struggle and loss. Privileged to meet Carolyn Weems who tells her story in this video produced by the Attorney General's office of Virginia.
For the Caitlyn's of the world...our neighbors whether we know it or acknowledge it or not.
hardesthitva.com/
HardestHitVA.com | Virginia Office of the Attorney General | Heroin, Opioid
hardesthitva.com
HardestHitVA.com is the Virginia Office of the Attorney General's resource to fight heroin and prescription opioid pain pill abuse in the Commonwealth.
Seriously?
Just when we were seeing hope peeking out of the clouds ....
Here's praying we can write, call and press to keep millions alive rather than slip back to the dark ages.
www.politico.com/story/2017/05/05/donald-trump-opioids-drug-control-funding-reaction-238047?cid=apn
Trump’s new opioids strategy ‘devastates’ advocates
politi.co
A proposal to slash funding for the drug control office is the latest worrying sign, advocates say.
With respect to those who remain in denial, beware! There is no place to hide.
With respect for what is evolving, take hope! During this time of what I now consider to be the "turmoil of hope", much is being done and on grand scales.
However, within the turmoil is a scramble of confusion as to who is doing what... where is there overlap... duplication of effort and therefore missed opportunities especially using taxpayer dollars.
As we merge to unite and integrate, I'm proud to be on the collaborative bandwagon. Together we ARE better!
www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/19/drug-overdose-deaths-surpass-war/22045058/
Drugs have killed more Americans in 4 years than WWI and WWII combined
aol.com
It's evident that the drug epidemic has gotten out of control -- there were 50,000 overdose deaths and 20.5 million addicted Americans in 2016.
Live in the general area of Ellicott City?
Consider joining together for this event hosted by St. John's.
Hope to see you there!
On behalf of St. John's Episcopal Church consider joining together for this special healing event: We Invite You to a Service of Hope and Healing For those who suffer from any discord of mind, body and spirit – to pray for healing, to remember a loved one, to give thanks for recovery, to uplift those who practice the healing arts, and to ask God to rid the world of pain and disease. April 23, 2017 at 3:00 P.M. Resurrection Chapel St. John’s Episcopal Church 9120 Frederick Rd. Ellicott City, Maryland NOTE: Resurrection Chapel is on the lower level of the building to the far right on the attached diagram.
Check this out...April 11th "The Other Talk" Heroin and opioid community discussion panel for change!
6 pm, Arundel Christian Church, Glen Burnie Join experts to learn, to ask questions and meet others also working to effect needed change to save lives.
See you there?
"Don’t just hope your children will never be exposed to drugs. Assume they will."
This is the message we want parents, grandparents, teachers, health care providers, law enforcement personnel and elected officials to GET!
It makes no sense to do the dance of "if only" or "woulda, shoulda, coulda". Head out of sand mode - try it if you want to save lives.
foreverymom.com/mom-gold/i-raised-a-heroin-addict-patricia-byrne/
I Raised a Heroin Addict--And I Learned Something Every Mom Should Know
foreverymom.com
This loving mom of a heroin addict wants you to know that the first step to prevention is admitting that your kids are not immune to drug addiction.
