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Chronicle AM: OR Marijuana Moves, No More UMass Snitches, Suboxone Bottlenecks, More (1/15/15)

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #870)

Oregon marijuana regulators are going on a listening tour while consumers get organized, a Minnesota Indian reservation ponders producing medical marijuana, UMass ends its student snitch program, and more. Let's get to it:

This opiate maintenance drug could be in wider use. (bluelight.org)
Marijuana Policy

Oregon Liquor Control Board on Pot Policy Listening Tour. The board, which is charged with regulating marijuana as well as liquor, has set the first two stops on its statewide listening tour designed to elicit public comment on proposed rules and regulations. The first two stops will be next Thursday in Baker and Pendleton. Click on the link for event details.

NORML Forms Portland Chapter to Lobby for Marijuana Consumer Interests. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has formed a Portland, Oregon, chapter to lobby for the interests of pot smokers as the state begins drafting rules for legal marijuana there. The Portland chapter is headed by radio host and long-time marijuana activist "Radical" Russ Bellville. The group will push to ensure that pot smokers are "provided the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities as adult alcohol and tobacco consumers, whenever practical."

Medical Marijuana

Minnesota Indian Tribe Okays Study on Medical Marijuana, Hemp. The tribal council for the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians has approved a study what economic benefits could accrue to the tribe by allowing the production of medical marijuana and hemp. Tribal leaders weren't interested in recreational marijuana, but saw job growth and economic development opportunities in producing medical marijuana or hemp. The federal government cleared the way for Indian reservations to participate in marijuana business last month, but so far, only one tribe, the Pinole Pomos in Northern California, has announced plans to move forward.

Harm Reduction

Obstacles to Wider Use of Suboxone. The Washington Post has a nice piece on bureaucratic bottlenecks blocking the wider use of the opiate maintenance medication suboxone, which is safer than methadone. Only doctors who have been trained and approved by the DEA can prescribe it, and only to a limited number of patients. Click on the link for much more.

Law Enforcement

Supreme Court Hears Deportation Case Hinging on Whether a Sock is Drug Paraphernalia. The US Supreme Court Wednesday held a hearing in the case of Moones Mellouli, a legal permanent US resident, who was ordered deported after being caught with four Adderall pills and eventually accepting a deal to plead guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia -- the sock in which the pills were hidden. His is the fourth case in which the high court has looked at deportations for minor drug offenses; in the first three, the court ruled against the government. Given the incredulous tenor of the questions from the justices, it looks like the government may lose this one, too. Click on the link for more.

UMass Amherst Will Quit Using Student Snitches. The school's chancellor has ended its program allowing campus police to use students as confidential informants. The move comes after a student used as a snitch by campus cops died of a heroin overdose. Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said using students as snitches is "fundamentally inconsistent with our core values."

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

CJ (not verified)

Safer ? I dont know that that's true either. Maybe it is. I'd like to know where that statement comes from. Look the truth of the matter is I have been a homeless junkie for a very long time and I've encountered hundreds, no, probably thousands of others so I'm not just reporting opinions of my group of several trainspotting type junkie friends. The fact is I dont think I've ever met anybody who prefers suboxone over methadone. But let me be very clear here, I dont think either of them are good or that great. As I've said many, many times before the truly best opiate maintenance option, the only one that will actually work is HEROIN MAINTENANCE. The numbers that I read last put Heroin maintenance success rate at 87-92% success. The numbers for methadone were 67% success in the same study which was Heroin maintenance vs methadone maintenance. And to cite the source, i believe these figures come from either the SALOME trials or the heroin maintenance piece in the New England Journal of Medicine that came out some time ago. I know people dont like to bother reading terribly long posts but I hope youll bear with me if dope is your thing or opiates. Like I've said before, theres only ever been one reason people would take suboxone over methadone and its because you dont have to report to a clinic everyday [though there are suboxone clinics where that is the case and that just blows my mind though these suboxone clinics have been slammed in the papers as money grabs.] The benefit is that, as any true opiate lover knows, there are those god awful demonic days when you cant find anything to steal, no money to be had, etc. and so that when youve exhausted all options and that sickness has become unbearable, then yes, you pop a suboxone. Suboxone blocks opiate receptors making no opiates work, it doesnt matter how often you take subs, you take one and youre screwed for some time. So people will delay it all day, hoping against hope theyll be able to make something work out and get real opiates before they give up and take suboxone. that's not how any medication should work. Listen, yes, even the most adamant opiate lovers will eventually feel so raped by prohibition on a given day that theyll just take methadone or suboxone right? But I can tell you in all my years I've only met one person that truly took suboxone consistently over methadone and the reason was because he was an illegal immigrant who had no ability to get into a methadone clinic and yet somehow a program gave him suboxone despite his status. He has told me though that if he could take meth over suboxone, he would.

 

Methadone floods your opiate receptors, suboxone blocks it. BUT heres the thing. Youre an opiate lover and you are forced to take one of these god awful things one day, you take that suboxone, for most people you are gonna feel like crap physically and mentally if you take suboxone. You see, you have to wait X amount of time before taking suboxone or else it will react with any opiates remaining in your system to cause precipitated withdrawals which is worse than regular withdrawals which is already so bad as to make you want to kill yourself. It is the most god awful pain imaginable. Methadone will never cause that. Suboxone was made in a way to cause it. VERY SPITEFUL thing for the suboxone creators to do. Suboxone is hand in glove with the system which is the system we rail against here and that we hate and that kills and ends lives. That system of cause pain to make the user stop using, as if that makes any sense. The more pain a junkie feels the more junk they use because duh junk is a pain killer. god bless it.

 

Also, Suboxone has a very strict roof. I think isnt it 32 mgs? Meaning you can take as much as you want passed that number and nothing is going to happen. But youd have to be such a naive opiate user to do that in the first place. But listen, ODs and bad things that happen to opiate lovers its often the result of stupidity so I guess that is just fine.

 

So I guess in a weird way I am glad that this "bottleneck" thing is going on because we dont need more suboxone in the world. It's just as useless as the handing out of naloxone. I doubt it makes a great difference whatsoever. Good though, impede suboxone. The suboxone people I've met, meaning people that sell/prescribe it and the company, its a scoundrel place and they're scoundrel people. I know a doctor at Columbia who recently had invited heroin maintenance officials form Europe to lecture on heroin maintenance. After the lecturerer left she slammed him and heroin maintenance. Suboxone pays this * * * * * off without a doubt. She hands it out like candy. Thinks its a god send. Its a F'N nightmare. Shes so transparent. Such a corrupt piece of crap. So yes I am glad. Lets not waste another 20 years with a new "opiate substitute drug (suboxone)" because well have to waste all that time when we could be spending that time getting rid of, abolishing, the Harrison Narcotics Act and thus allowing doctors to prescribe oxycodone, morphine, dillaudid, and even heroin for maintenance. Those drugs will work and they are given as alternative to heroin maintenance elsewhere already (heres looking at you, England). So good. Screw suboxone.

Fri, 01/16/2015 - 6:17am Permalink
sicntired (not verified)

While I agree with CJ that for himself and for me and others like the both of us.Heroin maintenance is the only sound and realistic option.In todays society we are just not looking at it as a possibility right now.I live in Vancouver,BC.Canada.We have needle exchanges,safe injection sites and finally a program of maintenance.It's a small fraction of what was available in past years and is so restrictive that it helps only 129 addicts.All of whom are homeless,in poor health and live in the DTES of Vancouver.As a long time advocate of heroin maintenance I was certain I would be accepted to any program that began here.I learned very quickly that history is meaningless here.Vancouver has heroin at only one location in this city.The clinic on Hastings.As an addict I have been as far out as coquitlam/Langley and there is nothing but the drug Fentanyl available on the street.There is probably heroin available to those that know the right person but the street is 100% Fentanyl.As for suboxone,of course it's the very last thing someone like myself or CJ wants to do.It consists of two antagonists that make opiate use impossible.Methadone,on the other hand,only raises the tolerance and increases the habit.heroin is probably being used by the vast majority of people on methadone.It certainly was in my day.I have been on methadone at least two dozen times at at least two dozen clinics.I was using,heavily every time.I was dealing heavily every time.That's what methadone is.A back stop for drug use.Something to have if the supply runs out.Suboxone is a different ballgame.It's only good if you really want to quit opiates.The "new"methadone,methadose,is another nightmare.It's my understanding that in the US it consists of nothing but methadone hydrochloride?In BC,under the college of P&S it is cut with an antagonist and something else to prevent injection.There is nowhere you can get the information as to what it is cut with.I tried injecting it once as I was told by my physician that it was injectable.The drug was negated(antagonist)and I had an infection(?)that traveled up and down my leg and formed a red irritated spot above and below the injection site.The anti drug hysteria that was so profound in the 70's and 80's caused our college to strip all interested doctors of their methadone licenses and the college took it over as a monopoly.It is now run by ideologues who consider addiction a plague and addicts as all liars and criminals.

Thu, 01/22/2015 - 9:39pm Permalink

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