Hint: Just insisting that you’re not bluffing this time won’t convince that young man, or many others of his kind. He’ll need to be shown. In an atmosphere such as this – already ‘spoiled’, we might say – any response must be carefully thought through and planned.
Turns out that cannabis is not really just the harmless fun toy that people assumed. Not now that products are waaay higher in THC content, and more and more people are eating and vaping and sucking on them, instead of simply puffing on a good ol’ college-style doobie.
I can imagine some users — not all, but more than a few — will make use of the patch to facilitate further unaccompanied fentanyl use, confident now that they won’t inadvertently overdose. And being surprised when they did.
In recent months, samples have been found with as much as 20% fentanyl content. It’s easy to see how this could increase both the total number of overdoses, and the percentage of victims who did not survive.
Turns out that cannabis is not really just the harmless fun toy that people assumed. Not now that products are waaay higher in THC content, and more and more people are eating and vaping and sucking on them, instead of simply puffing on a good ol’ college-style doobie.
Worse yet, in addition to being difficult to track, it was cheap to make and many times the potency of the drugs with which they were familiar.
After all, the victim may well have self-administered the fatal dose, or even procured it on their own — thereby exercising what at least appears to most observers to be freedom of choice.
Worse yet, in addition to being difficult to track, it was cheap to make and many times the potency of the drugs with which they were familiar.
...the situation has improved, mostly because of renewed efforts on the demand side. Estonia adopted harm reduction strategies used effectively in other countries, such as take-home naloxone; ready access to MAT; and efforts to destigmatize drug use and drug users.
One young man explained that he avoided speaker meetings because the “drunkalogues” he heard triggered in him an awful craving for a drink.
I was reminded that patients’ own goals can easily diverge from, or even directly contradict, the presumed goals of the professionals who treat them.
It’s a common misconception, that somehow repeated failures precede eventual success. They don’t.
From a counseling standpoint, it’s a time when we ought to be advising patients to restrict their social media activity, at the very least to selected forums and sites that support recovery goals
It’s a common misconception, that somehow repeated failures precede eventual success. They don’t.
...there are other folks out there like these— pretending to sobriety yet still secretly using, and hoping to avoid the sort of trouble that haunted them in the past.
...with law enforcement agencies taking on vastly different roles, planning and practicing our response appears more important than in the past.
...the author, who grew up in and around the region, chose to use its earnings to found Higher Ground, a home for recovering women.
...the author, who grew up in and around the region, chose to use its earnings to found Higher Ground, a home for recovering women.
It certainly makes sense that if you suffer from a major mental illness, you should stay away from pot.
People have abused opiates for 5,000 years. As much as medicine depends on them, they've always created problems for a percentage of users.
