Cocaine Deaths Are Rising At An Alarming Rate, And It’s Because Of Fentanyl (Buzzfeed)

Tuesday May 1st, 2018

Cocaine deaths rose 52% between 2015 and 2016. A BuzzFeed News analysis shows the role of fentanyl in this staggering trend.

Since cocaine is a stimulant and fentanyl a depressant, mistaking the two might be especially dangerous.

“They might take what they think is cocaine and not get the feeling they expect — in fact they get the opposite — and so they think they have to take more to get what they expect,” said Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen. “Instead they give themselves a fatal overdose of fentanyl.”

Read the entire story.

Related Stories

Lead poisoning cases fell 19 percent in Baltimore last year, even as more children tested for exposure (Baltimore Sun)

The number of Baltimore children with lead poisoning fell 19 percent in 2017, even as more children were tested for exposure to the powerful neurotoxin.

Statewide, the number of Maryland children found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood held steady even as the number of children tested increased by 10 percent, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment report released Tuesday.

Read the entire story.

Trump declared an emergency over opioids. A new report finds it led to very little. (Vox)

To much fanfare last year, President Donald Trump ordered his administration to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said at the time. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.”

When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

Read the entire story.

Azar Unveils Plan to Help Pregnant Patients Quit Opioids (MedPage Today)

States will get help from the federal government integrating services for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid patients with opioid use disorder under a pilot program announced Tuesday by Health and Hu

Visit the Newsroom