Tag: opioids

  • Worst Outcomes for Babies

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    GuidaBrown
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    Two noteworthy articles bleeped onto my radar on the same day recently. The first was a post about “Alcohol Use, Screening, and Brief Intervention Among Pregnant Persons — 24 U.S. Jurisdictions, 2017 and 2019” and the other was “2023’s Best & Worst States to Have a Baby” from WalletHub. I fully realize that WalletHub is…

  • Bias Against Babies

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    GuidaBrown
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    Bias is defined as “prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.” This topic comes up often regarding testing pregnant patients for misuse of drugs. For example, in April 2023, JAMA reported that “Black patients, regardless of history of substance use,…

  • Whose Safety Is Being Secured?

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    GuidaBrown
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    Recent headlines have shown wide-ranging ideas about what should happen when those with substance use disorders (SUD) have babies born with unprescribed drugs, including alcohol, in their systems.   The American Medical Association cautions “Don’t criminalize pregnant patients with substance use disorders,” and it seems that Ohio has taken that advice to heart, given this inflammatory…

  • Where’s the Rx?

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    GuidaBrown
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    Over the last few days I’ve been confronted – again – with the realization that far too many people don’t believe addiction is a disease, no matter what they actually say about it. First, the municipality where I live, one where no cannabis use is legal, decided to drop the first possession ticket to a…

  • Our Next New Drug Crisis

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    GuidaBrown
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    Ketamine has a long and storied history. Developed in the early 1960s as an anesthesia, it was deemed too dangerous for people due to its “intense, prolonged emergence delirium that ultimately made it undesirable for human use.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5126726/ More studies; more testing; and the end result — well, maybe not the END result, but the…

  • Gabapentin: A New Way to Die

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    GuidaBrown
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    In 2012, at the height of the opioid epidemic in this country, the US had 95% of the hydrocodone prescriptions in the world, despite having only 5% of the world’s population. The shocking fact that was thrown around was that “health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid pain medication, enough for every adult…

  • Helping the Tiniest Victims

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    GuidaBrown
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    The tiniest victims of the opioid crisis are the babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), and, specifically, neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS). Overall in the US, the number of babies born with NAS is considered to be 6.7 per 1,000. However, those numbers increase based on different factors: American Indian/Alaska Natives have babies with…

  • Four Ways to Die Podcast

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    GuidaBrown
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    Check out this podcast from the Kenosha County Substance Abuse Coalition, hosted by Mike McGowan. He interviews me about one of the most popular blogs I’ve ever written: “Four Ways to Die.” Alcohol is a toxin and, far and away, the most commonly abused substance. It can kill all by itself. It also doesn’t play…

  • Four Ways to Die…by Mixing Alcohol with Other Drugs

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    GuidaBrown
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    This is an oldie but a goodie. Stick around the SaveLivesKenosha.org website for many valuable resources and a great podcast, too! https://saveliveskenosha.com/four-ways-dieby-mixing-alcohol-drugs