NY charges Johnson & Johnson with fraud over opioid claims

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Innocent until proven greedy –

Sep. 17, 2020 – “Misrepresentation of opioids to consumers for profit is inexcusable,” Cuomo said in a statement. Johnson & Johnson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

New York said Johnson & Johnson manufactured opioid products in the state such as the fentanyl patch Duragesic and drug Nucynta, and said its “Norman Poppy” was once responsible for as much as 80 percent of the global supply for oxycodone raw materials. 

The New Brunswick, NJ-based company was charged with violating two New York insurance laws, with civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.

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Doctor faces charges for over-prescribing for cash after 2 patients die

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Paging Dr. Morte – 

Sep. 17, 2020 – Now the Scranton doctor accused of over-prescribing opioids in exchange for cash incentives from a drug manufacturer is facing federal charges for his allegedly illegal prescriptions. Now, more than two years later, the doctor faces a federal indictment accusing him of being part of an elaborate scheme to overprescribe an opioid called Subsys to 13 of his patients.

According to paperwork filed in federal court, two of Moran’s patients — a 35-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman — overdosed and died from the drugs he prescribed.

The indictment alleges the drug company paid Moran ‘kickbacks’ to prescribe the drug and disguised those payments as speaking fees.

It is alleged Moran was paid $140,000 over the course of two years to prescribe this drug.

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5 Tricks Helped Me Not Drink During My First Week of Sobriety

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Use them all! –

Sep. 19, 2020 – Some say that’s the hardest. It’s that period of uncertainty where the newly sober attempts to make all sorts of concessions concerning their hell-raising lifestyle and break lifelong habits that have historically led them to the bottom of a 12-pack and a night of drunken indiscretion. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to hold it down without falling off the wagon. I didn’t even scrape my knee trying to get on. How did I do it? Well, it certainly hasn’t been the easiest of challenges. But I’d like to think that the following five tricks helped keep me in check right out of the gate.

more@Brobible

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Owner of substance abuse facilities accused of sexually assaulting patients

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Prison sounds too nice –

Sept. 17, 2020 – The owner of several Houston substance abuse recovery facilities has been accused of sexual assaulting three women he met as patients, according to court records.  During the press conference, Detective Baker expressed concern that there could be more victims that have not come forward.

more@HoustonChronicle

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E-Cig clouds aren’t ‘Vapour’, scientists warn, they are ‘Aerosol’

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Chemical Addiction – 

Sept. 19, 2020 – As such, public health experts argue ‘aerosol’ is a more accurate description, as e-cigarette clouds have been shown to contain harmful chemicals that may hang in the air and settle on nearby surfaces.

The change in name might sound pedantic, but new research suggests it has a real impact on public policy and how individuals assess their risk of exposure from tobacco products. 

Comparing three terms for e-cig emissions among 791 college students, researchers found the word “vapour” was linked to a lower sense of risk from secondhand exposure. 

On the other hand, students who were asked questions using the words “chemicals” or “aerosols” were twice as likely to describe emissions as “harmful” or “very harmful”. 

These individuals were also more likely to support a 100 percent tobacco-free campus policy.

“Smoke-free and tobacco-free campus environments are always a common-sense public health measure, and are especially so at this time, given the strong link between tobacco use and COVID-19 transmission among young people,” says public health scientist Matthew Rossheim from George Mason University. 

“Colleges and universities are encouraged to urgently adopt tobacco-free campus policies to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.”

more@ScienceAlert

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Episode 2 ‘Still in Love’ Chasing the News…cold stone sober! – Hosted by William Cope Moyers

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

“Maintaining sobriety and fidelity during an era of uncertainty”
Two couples discuss the pandemic, commitment and Zoom rooms.

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What Happened Inside Ed Buck’s Apartment?

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Real Life Hollywood Horror –

September 16, 2020 – One death is a tragedy; two deaths are a pattern. As the strange events on North Laurel Avenue captured the attention of the national media, a shocking new detail came to light. It appeared that Buck was not a nobody. He was a Democratic Party “megadonor and political activist” (ABC News); a “prominent political activist” (NBC). He was “high-profile” (The New York Post); he was “high-powered” (Fox). Frustrated by the lack of response from law enforcement, the family of Gemmel Moore filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Buck, the county and the district attorney. Their lawyers tallied several hundred thousand dollars in political contributions that Buck had made to Democratic candidates at all levels of office, from city to federal. They said that Buck was being shielded thanks to his political donations and status. They said that the county does not investigate crimes against Black gay men.

In the past decade, deaths in Los Angeles County related to meth overdose had increased 707 percent, from 50 in 2007 to 320 the year Moore died. Meth gave you a dopamine rush that was quick and enveloping. The supply was always plentiful. The Sinaloa cartel and its competitors moved the product from Mexico into Southern California, where distributors split up parcels and sent them into the city. The street price in Los Angeles stayed low, under $20 a dose, so meth was accessible to the very poor and homeless. The comedown made you twitchy and miserable; you could get addicted after your first time using. To the average medical examiner or L.A. County sheriff’s deputy in July 2017, the death of Gemmel Moore at the home of an older white john would have seemed like a sad, unremarkable story with familiar components: a sex worker, methamphetamine, bad luck.

The person with the power to bring a criminal case against Buck was Jackie Lacey, the first Black district attorney of Los Angeles County, and a Democrat. The day before the first anniversary of Moore’s death, Lacey announced that her team had completed an investigation and would not file charges. Demonstrators gathered outside 1234 North Laurel. Nothing changed, and they returned a year later. The signs said: “JACKIE LACEY: PROSECUTE ED BUCK.” “This is a national emergency for people who look like us,” said an activist named Jerome Kitchen, who is Black. Weeks passed, and no arrest was made.

On Sept. 11, 2019, at 5:20 in the morning, a man walked into the cashier’s booth at the Shell station on Santa Monica and North Laurel, three blocks from Buck’s apartment. The man was Black and wore jeans and a button-up shirt. His hand kept rising to touch his chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack,” he said. 

more@NYTimes

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Model, brand influencer brings sobriety to social media

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Sober Out Loud – 

Sept. 10, 2020 – “I see it everywhere,” she said of alcohol on social media and other online sites. “I actually had to stop listening to the podcasts that I really enjoyed because they normalize all of the heavy drinking by saying ‘we need to or we have no other choice.’ It’s just very scary for me.”

Scary, because Hanson has called herself an alcoholic since she was 21 years old. Now she’s hoping to turn the social media tide a bit by bringing online attention to sobriety. Hanson, who grew up dancing and in musical theater, says she started drinking when she was just 16 years old. 

“The first day I drank I got super drunk —binge drank — and I’ve been a binge drinker ever since,” she said. “I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve had just one drink. I’m always someone who, the second I start drinking is like, ‘okay, I need to just start taking shots.’ I’ll have four or five drinks, at least. I’m off to the races.’”

She says at first, the heavy drinking didn’t get in the way. In fact, she says while she drank, she felt relief from the severe anxiety she had experienced since childhood.

“At first it was like ‘oh my gosh, no more anxiety. Everyone is super fun and they like me. I felt on top of the world,” said Hanson. 

But then she started failing classes, and the anxiety that had initially disappeared while she drank, came roaring back.

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99 Purple Flags Posted For Overdose Awareness

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Lives lost forever –

Sept. 11, 2020 – Unwanted medications can sometimes end up in the wrong hands, which is a contributing factor to the opioid epidemic.

  “We usually have an annual candlelight vigil at Echo Lake for Overdose Awareness Day, but with social distancing, this was not possible this year. Instead, we did the display at town hall for Route 9 visibility, social media posts, and a Howell Township proclamation recognizing Aug. 31 as Overdose Awareness Day,” she said.

The proclamation was read by Howell Mayor Theresa Berger during a recent Township Council meeting.

Riddle noted that in addition to the message of overdose prevention, the day would also include a focus on properly disposing unwanted medications. “All unwanted medications get dropped only at Howell Police Dept, 300 Old Tavern Road. The 24/7, anonymous Project Medicine Drop box is in the lobby. They cannot be left at any other township building.”

more@JerseyShoreOnline

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Vaping Links to Covid Risk Becoming Clear

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Smoke gets in your lungs… –  

Sept. 4, 2020 – At one point, Mr. Moein said, his doctors gave him a 5 percent chance of survival. He resolved that the wax pen he had vaped before his hospitalization would be his last.

When he contracted a mild case of Covid-19 during a family barbecue three months ago, he knew he had quit not a moment too soon. “If I had caught Covid-19 within the week before I got really ill, I probably would have died,” he said. ince the start of the pandemic, experts have warned that the coronavirus — a respiratory pathogen — most likely capitalizes on the scarred lungs of smokers and vapers. Doctors and researchers are now starting to pinpoint the ways in which smoking and vaping seem to enhance the virus’s ability to spread from person to person, infiltrate the lungs and spark some of Covid-19’s worst symptoms.

“I have no doubt in saying that smoking and vaping could put people at increased risk of poor outcomes from Covid-19,” said Dr. Stephanie Lovinsky-Desir, a pediatric pulmonologist at Columbia University. “It is quite clear that smoking and vaping are bad for the lungs, and the predominant symptoms of Covid are respiratory. Those two things are going to be bad in combination.”

more@NYTimes

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