Seven people in Alberta have developed a form of immune system suppression after consuming cocaine laced with a chemical compound

00:11 a condition that makes the immune system incapable of fighting off infections , agranulocytosis 0 Comments

Seven people in Alberta have developed a form of immune system suppression after consuming cocaine laced with a chemical compound, public health officials said Friday.The individuals developed agranulocytosis, a condition that makes the immune system incapable of fighting off infections.It makes common infections become serious, even fatal, quite quickly."We are advising anyone who develops a fever or other signs of infection and has used cocaine to seek medical attention quickly," Dr. Gerry Predy, Alberta's Acting Chief Medical Officer of Health, said in a news release."Any skin abscess or lung infection that develops rapidly should also be treated immediately."Officials have linked the cases to cocaine laced with levamisole, a chemical compound developed to treat intestinal worms in humans and animals.The cases were reported in Edmonton, Red Deer, and in undisclosed locations in southern and northern Alberta.Doctors in Alberta have been advised they should test and treat patients for this condition if they complain of a fever or other signs of infection after using cocaine.

Voters in Switzerland go to the polls to decide whether to make a controversial heroin prescription programme a permanent, nationwide health policy

21:23 Switzerland 0 Comments

Voters in Switzerland go to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to make a controversial heroin prescription programme a permanent, nationwide health policy
The Swiss government supports the idea but opponents say it encourages drug addiction, and sends the wrong message to young people.
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s Switzerland had one of the highest rates of heroin addiction in Europe.Open drug scenes in cities such as Zurich, Basel and Bern were common, with addicts injecting and dealers selling publicly in the streets and parks.Users often shared needles, leading to a sharp rise in HIV infection rates, and in the spread of Hepatitis.In an attempt to reduce the spread of such diseases, if nothing else, the Swiss health department began introducing needle exchanges, followed by clean injection rooms where addicts could take heroin in a safe environment, supervised by a nurse.For many health professionals, the next logical step was to start prescribing heroin to those addicts, many of them already ill, who really did not seem able to get off drugs.
I would never, never, put my children into a heroin prescription programme. What kind of freedom is that? I'd rather they were dead
In 1998 Switzerland introduced an experimental 10-year heroin prescription programme. Today around 1,300 patients across the country are on the programme.
Dr Christoph Buerki says his clinic in Bern serves 210 such patients."Their average age is 40 now, and they have an average of 13 years of heroin addiction before they enter this programme. Basically we are aiming at a group of people where everything else has failed," he says.Dr Buerki's patients have to have tried abstinence treatments at least twice before being eligible for heroin prescription.
The majority have also tried and failed to stay on a methadone maintenance programme. Methadone in fact remains the more common maintenance treatment in Switzerland, with over 16,000 patients.Dr Christoph Buerki says his patients have some chance of a normal life
Jan, 33, is one of the clinic's first patients on a Thursday morning. He has been an addict since he was 20, and for the last eight years he has been on the heroin prescription programme."At first I didn't want to come here," he says, as he rolls up his trouser leg to make the injection."I thought this was just the lowest of the low but, well, I am an addict. And I've got a job now, and two sons, so I live a pretty normal life."My kids just know that Dad is sick and has to take medicine every day, that's all."And Dr Buerki shares the view that long term addicts like Jan are actually ill, and need to be treated as such."These are patients with a chronic, relapsing disease that might go with them for the rest of their lives," he says.
But opponents of heroin prescription, like Sabine Geissbuhler of the association Parents Against Drugs, say that attitude is exactly what is wrong."When heroin prescription was first introduced, it was touted as a 'treatment'," she says."But treatment means the goal should be people get off drugs eventually - they stop being addicts - and that's just not happening.""It's an outrage," she continues, "that the state should give addicts heroin - it's poison. You don't give people poison to make them better.""It would be more shocking if we just let them die," counters Maria Chiara Saraceni, a drugs policy expert with the Swiss federal health department.
Heroin was very 'in'... But now people who take heroin have the image of losers, of junkies."It's the government's responsibility to help everyone, and not to judge them."If this is what they need to live a more stable life, and to get off the streets, then that is what we should offer."But Ms Geissbuhler is not convinced.
"That's not a life," she insists. "I have four children, and I would never, never, put them into a heroin prescription programme. What kind of freedom is that? I'd rather they were dead."But whether a life is worth living or not can be a very personal, subjective thing.Jan, who leaves the clinic every day to go to work, then returns in the evening for a second injection before picking up his son from nursery, views his life as normal, and even contented."I'm just like everyone else," he insists. I get up in the morning, I go to work, I do my job responsibly, I go home to my family in the evening. And at the weekend I'm the Dad my kids want me to be."But the fact remains that Jan may well be on heroin for the rest of his life.
Very few patients on the programme have so far managed to get off the drug for good, and in that sense heroin prescription does not fit with Switzerland's chief goal on drug use, which is abstinence.Doctors like Christoph Buerki accept that their patients will be with them for many years to come. Instead he points to another, unexpected side effect of the programme.The heroin clinic dispels any myth of heroin being glamorous"Heroin was a very 'in' and fashionable thing to do in the 1980s and early 1990s," he explains. "But now people who take heroin have the image of losers, of junkies."I mean look at this place," he says, gesturing to his small, rather run-down clinic, and the lines of patients, most of them middle aged, waiting for injections.
"Nobody thinks this is a good thing - it's not cool to go to a clinic like ours to get heroin twice a day."We've medicalised heroin in Switzerland - it has the image of an ugly illness, and that is why, I think, numbers of new addicts are falling.Very few young people are turning to heroin in Switzerland these days."And that is the argument that may well sway many Swiss voters.Keeping hundreds of people on heroin through old age and right to the ends of their lives is a rather shocking prospect, but polls suggest the Swiss may accept it, if it means their streets are free of illegal drug use, and their young people see heroin not as a glamorous rock star's drug, but as a sad, banal, old people's habit.

David Marks, 47, admitted burgling two homes, stealing two cars and asked for a further 19 burglaries to be taken into consideration.

18:01 Snaresbrook Crown Court 0 Comments

David Marks, 47, admitted burgling two homes, stealing two cars and asked for a further 19 burglaries to be taken into consideration. Judge John Lafferty jailed the drug addict for 65 weeks, but suspended the sentence for two years. The judge told Lafferty, who has 42 previous convictions for 92 house break-ins: "You have been given a chance. "If you don't take this chance, you and I will meet again."
Snaresbrook Crown Court heard Marks "relapsed" in April and May this year when he returned to crime. Marks, who offered advice as a "recovering addict" to young and homeless people through the Christian charity, failed to practise what he preached when he found himself sleeping rough. He was arrested on April 17 this year in Barking Road, Plaistow, after police spotted him behind the wheel of the Italian hatchback. Later that month, Marks targeted a four-bedroom terraced house in Portway, Stratford, east London, smashing a front door window, but failing to gain entry as the entranceway was double locked. Marks was tracked using DNA evidence after cutting himself and smearing blood on the inside door of the porch. On May 9, Marks ransacked a home in New North Road, Hainault, Essex. Marks was arrested on June 25 after his fingerprint was found on a plastic bag containing a crowbar in the hallway. Judge Lafferty ordered Marks complete a six-month rehab programme, comply with an 18 months' supervision in the community, and reside in hostel accommodation for the duration of his treatment.