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Addiction Treatment in Jail

Fentanyl Laced Drugs Leading to Overdose Spikes

Heart Health and Alcohol

Coalition Rx Updates


In The News
Opioid Addiction Treatment in Jail Could Change Lives
By Robert Preidt, U.S News
"Providing addiction medication in jails reduces the odds of addicts being re-arrested after their release, new research shows.

"Studies like this provide much-needed evidence and momentum for jails and prisons to better enable the treatment, education and support systems that individuals with an opioid use disorder need to help them recover and prevent reincarceration," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

"Not offering treatment to people with opioid use disorder in jails and prisons can have devastating consequences, including a return to using and heightened risk of overdose and death after release," she noted in an institute news release.

People with opioid addiction are hooked on illicit drugs like heroin, powerful painkillers such as oxycodone (OxyContin), or synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

The study included 469 adults jailed in two rural Massachusetts jails, one in Franklin County (197 prisoners) and the other in Hampshire County (272 prisoners). Most were male, white, and aged 34 to 35. All had an opioid addiction, which is an epidemic in the United States, and left the jails between Jan. 1, 2015, and April 30, 2019.

During that time, the Franklin County jail began offering opioid addiction medication buprenorphine to prisoners, while the Hampshire County facility did not.

An analysis of the jails' electronic booking systems showed that less than half of the participants from the Franklin County jail re-offended, compared with 63% of those from the Hampshire County jail."

'It's not worth it': DEA says fentanyl-laced drugs are leading to spike in overdoses, deaths
By Sarah Fili, KETV
"A lethal batch of drugs is killing people all over the Midwest, including right here in Omaha.

The Omaha branch of the Drug Enforcement Administration said overdoses are on the rise because of fentanyl.

“We’re seeing it laced in with other drugs, whether it's cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, but we're also seeing it pressed into pills,” said Emily Murray.

"We know that there were more than 100,000 overdose deaths last year, which is an alarming number in the highest total we've ever seen. And more than 60% of those overdoses were attributed to synthetic substances like fentanyl."
She said there's no easy way to tell if drugs have fentanyl in them, and just a small amount can kill you.

“To put it into perspective visually, it’s just the tip of a pencil, or if you were to get a salt shaker and shake out ten pieces of salt,” Murray said.
Murray said 4 in 10 counterfeit pills the DEA tests have a lethal dose of fentanyl in them, in part because the people who mix it, don't mix it consistently.

“It's just, it's unreal, it's flooding the markets, it's flooding the streets,” Murray said. “It’s like playing Russian roulette. If a drug dealer or a seller can provide a drug to 10 different people, and let's say two of those people die, they're still going to have eight people who are now addicted and going to come back to them time and time again for the substance.”


What's Happening at Coalition Rx?
Coalition Rx staff have been busy at the beginning of 2022 with getting our Too Good For Drugs and Violence classes started back up after winter break. Below are pictures from just a few of our programs this past month!
The More You Know
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Looking Forward
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Help Reduce the Misuse of Substances of Abuse
Founded in 2015, our mission is to reduce the misuse of all substances of abuse by raising awareness and partnering with community organizations to provide public and professional education, prevention and treatment resources, and policy advocacy.
Carey Pomykata Executive Director
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