HEALTH & JUSTICE IN THE NEWS
Date: January 22, 2018
 

TASC in the News

Film, panel discussion to look at alcohol, drug addiction recovery
SIU News, 1/19/18
Southern Illinois University Carbondale's Student Health Center will host a panel discussion and feature film that focuses on recovering from alcohol and drug addiction. The community meeting is from 5 to 8 p.m. Jan. 24 in the Student Health Center's Auditorium. The documentary "Anonymous People," which focuses on the more than 23.5 million Americans living in long-term recovery from alcohol and drug addiction will be featured. The event is free and is open to the public and the university community. A panel discussion and community Q-and-A will follow.  Panelists include Dr. Aaron Newcomb of Shawnee Health Service, and representatives from TASC-IL (Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities); Centerstone, Gateway Foundation Alcohol and Drug Treatment, and the university's Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). In addition, there will also be Narcan training available for those interested in learning how to administer naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
 
 
Around the Nation  

Senate advances measure to end government shutdown
NBC News, 1/22/18
The three-day government shutdown is on the verge of ending after enough Senate Democrats joined Republicans to advance a three-week extension of funding in exchange for GOP assurances that Congress would take up a larger immigration bill in that time. The stopgap funding measure, which needed 60 votes to clear a key procedural hurdle, was approved 81 to 18.
 
How The Shutdown Might Affect Your Health
Kaiser Health News, 1/19/18
A government shutdown will have far-reaching effects for public health, including the nation's response to the current, difficult flu season. It will also disrupt some federally supported health services, experts said Friday. In all, the Department of Health and Human Services will send home - or furlough - about half of its employees, or nearly 41,000 people, according to an HHS shutdown contingency plan released Friday.
 
Governors ask Trump, Congress to do more on opioid crisis
The Washington Post | AP, 1/18/18
Less than three months after President Donald Trump declared the U.S. opioid crisis a public health emergency, the nation's governors are calling on his administration and Congress to provide more money and coordination for the fight against the drugs, which are killing more than 90 Americans a day. The list of more than two dozen recommendations made Thursday by the National Governors Association is the first coordinated, bipartisan response from the nation's governors since Trump's October declaration. The governors praised him for taking a first step, which included a pledge to support states' efforts to pay for drug treatment through Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program for low-income people. But the governors also called for more action.
 
Trump administration extending opioid emergency declaration
Politico, 1/19/18
The Trump administration is extending an emergency declaration for the opioid crisis. A notice posted to the HHS website Friday said acting Secretary Eric Hargan would extend the public health emergency, which was originally declared in late October. The order was originally set to expire Tuesday. The designation gives federal health agencies the authority to quickly hire more treatment specialists and reallocate money to strengthen the response to the epidemic that killed more than 42,000 Americans in 2016.
 
Kentuckians Scared Of Medicaid Rules: 'If People Could Work Their Way Out Of Poverty, They Would Have Already'
Kaiser Health News, 1/22/18
While Gov. Matt Bevin (R) is enthusiastic about his proposal to add work requirements to his state's Medicaid program, residents relying on it are worried. "People need their Medicaid," says Lakin BranĀ­ham, who relies on the program to pay for drug counseling every other week. Outlets report on news about the requirements from Alabama, Ohio and Louisiana, as well. This morning briefing provides links to Medicaid news stories around the nation.
 
Federal Lawsuit Challenges Dallas Cash Bail System
The Crime Report, 1/20/18
Four nonprofits have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that the Dallas County jail's cash bail system unfairly harms poor people and violates the Texas and U.S. constitutions, the Dallas Morning News reports. The lawsuit alleges that the system fails to consider a person's ability to pay to post bond, resulting in disparate treatment. Poorer citizens remain jailed for weeks or months because they can't afford to pay their way out, while wealthier people can quickly purchase their freedom, the suit charges.
Related: "Poor people locked up longer than the rich, violating Constitution in Dallas, lawsuit alleges" (The Dallas Morning News, 1/21/18): https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas-county/2018/01/21/poor-people-locked-longer-rich-violating-constitution-dallas-lawsuit-alleges
 
Why New Hampshire's Drug Problem is So Acute
The Crime Report, 1/21/18
New Hampshire leads the nation in overdose deaths per capita from fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has virtually replaced heroin across New England. Because fentanyl is so potent, the risk of overdose is high. In New Hampshire, the opioid crisis is almost a statewide obsession, the New York Times reports. An astonishing 53 percent of adults said in a Granite State poll last year that drugs were the biggest problem facing the state, the first time in the poll's history that a majority named a single issue as the most important. While West Virginia leads the nation in overall drug overdose deaths per capita, New Hampshire is essentially tied with Ohio for second place.
 
Feb 7 Training: Understanding the Brain Science of Addiction
Addiction Policy Forum
This is the first in our series of courses on The Science of Addiction. Attendees and webinar participants will hear from Dr. Maureen Boyle, Chief Scientific Officer at the Addiction Policy Forum, about what science tells us about how addiction can hijack the brain and what this means for effectively treating and preventing substance use disorders.
 
 
Around Illinois  

Kane County official: Naloxone alone won't stop opioid epidemic
Daily Herald, 1/17/18
Despite the success of bringing people back from the edge of death, Kane County public health officials say the reversal drugs alone will not fix the local opioid epidemic. The county began training local law enforcement agencies, social service providers and libraries how to use naloxone in 2014. Since then 108 people have been administered the drug, more commonly known by the brand name Narcan. All told, the county has distributed more than 6,000 doses of Narcan and conducted 262 trainings with various agencies. Opioid overdose deaths in the county hit a record high in 2017 despite all those efforts. That's why this year the public health department will focus on more drug education, according to Barb Jeffers, executive director of the department. "We want to give family members and others...to be able to go online and find a treatment center or a community provider. We know Narcan is not a cure-all, but it's one death prevented. And maybe that's the day where that person says, 'I need to get some help.' We need to be able to put education behind that."
 
'Pharmacy deserts' a growing health concern in Chicago, experts, residents say
Chicago Tribune, 1/22/18
Growing portions of more than a dozen Chicago neighborhoods, mostly on the city's South and West sides, are becoming "pharmacy deserts," say some public health experts. The term describes a community with limited access to a pharmacy, whether retail or independent. Hospital inpatient pharmacies are not typically included in these counts, as they dispense medicine only to hospitalized patients. In Chicago, research has shown most of these neighborhoods share a mix of characteristics: Their residents tend to be low-income, immigrants, and/or black and Latino. And, experts argue, given the widening scope of services many pharmacies are providing, including physicals, immunizations, drug counseling, sexually transmitted infection screening and other laboratory testing - even access to naloxone, the medication used to reverse opioid overdose - pharmacies are increasingly important pieces of the national conversation around health care, especially where health inequity already exists.
 
 
Research, Reports, and Studies  

National Prison Rate Continues to Decline Amid Sentencing, Re-Entry Reforms
The Pew Charitable Trusts, 1/16/18
After peaking in 2008, the nation's imprisonment rate fell 11 percent over eight years, reaching its lowest level since 1997, according to an analysis of new federal statistics by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The decline from 2015-16 was 2 percent, much of which was due to a drop in the number of  people held in federal prisons. Also since that 2008 peak, 36 states reduced their imprisonment rates, including declines of 15 percent or more in 20 states from diverse regions of the country, such as Alaska, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Connecticut. During the same period, almost every state recorded a decrease in crime with no apparent correlation to imprisonment.
 
Accelerating progress to reduce alcohol-impaired driving fatalities
ScienceDaily, 1/17/18
 Despite progress in recent decades, more than 10,000 alcohol-impaired driving fatalities occur each year in the US. To address this persistent problem, stakeholders -- from transportation systems to alcohol retailers to law enforcement -- should work together to implement policies and systems to eliminate these preventable deaths, says a new report. The report calls for lowering blood alcohol concentration levels for driving, increasing federal and state alcohol taxes, and increasing enforcement, among other recommendations.
 
 
Health & Justice in the News  is a summary of recent news stories relating to criminal justice, mental health, addiction, recovery, and related issues. It is compiled and published by TASC each Monday and Thursday.
 
Some headlines and text have been altered by TASC for clarity or emphasis, or to minimize discriminatory or stigmatizing language. Opinions in the articles and op-eds do not necessarily express the views of TASC or our staff or partners.

See what's happening on our social sites