17 Pics of Bartenders Stripped Down for a Good Cause
www.advocate.com/slideshow/2019/1/16/17-pics-bartenders-stripped-down-good-cause
17 Pics of Bartenders Stripped Down for a Good Cause
www.advocate.com/slideshow/2019/1/16/17-pics-bartenders-stripped-down-good-cause
The Academy Award-winning director of ‘Precious’ is planning a gay superhero movie
“Dreams do come true. America, world get ready ‘cuz Super B*tch is here!”
Meth’s Resurgence Spotlights Lack Of Meds To Combat The Addiction
But Madeline Vaughn, then a lead clinical intake coordinator at the Houston-based addiction treatment organization Council on Recovery, sensed something different was going on with the patients she checked in from the street.
Their behavior, marked by twitchy suspicion, a poor memory and the feeling that someone was following them, signaled that the people coming through the center’s doors were increasingly hooked on a different drug: methamphetamine.
“When you’re in the boots on the ground,” Vaughn said, “what you see may surprise you, because it’s not in the headlines.”
In the time since, it’s become increasingly clear that, even as the opioid epidemic continues, the toll of methamphetamine use, also known as meth or crystal meth, is on the rise, too.
The rate of overdose deaths involving the stimulant more than tripled from 2011 to 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
But unlike the opioid epidemic — for which medications exist to help combat addiction — medical providers have few such tools to help methamphetamine users survive and recover. A drug such as naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose, does not exist for meth. And there are no drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration that can treat a meth addiction.
“We’re realizing that we don’t have everything we might wish we had to address these different kinds of drugs,” said Dr. Margaret Jarvis, a psychiatrist and distinguished fellow for the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Meth revs up the human body, causing euphoria, elevated blood pressure and energy that enables users to go for days without sleeping or eating. In some cases, long-term use alters the user’s brain and causes psychotic symptoms that can take up to one year after the person has stopped using it to dissipate.
Overdosing can trigger heart attacks, strokes and seizures, which can make pinpointing the drug’s involvement difficult.
Meth users also tend to abuse other substances, which complicates first responders’ efforts to treat a patient in the event of an overdose, said Dr. David Persse, EMS physician director for Houston. With multiple drugs in a patient’s system, overdose symptoms may not neatly fit under the description for one substance.
“If we had five or six miracle drugs,” Persse said, to use immediately on the scene of the overdose, “it’s still gonna be difficult to know which one that patient needs.”
Research is underway to develop a medication that helps those with methamphetamine addiction overcome their condition. The National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network is testing a combination of naltrexone, a medication typically used to treat opioid and alcohol use disorders, and an antidepressant called bupropion.
And a team from the Universities of Kentucky and Arkansas created a molecule called lobeline that shows promise in blocking meth’s effects in the brain.
For now, though, existing treatments, such as the Matrix Model, a drug counseling technique, and contingency management, which offers patients incentives to stay away from drugs, are key options for what appears to be a meth resurgence, said Jarvis.
Illegal drugs never disappear from the street, she said. Their popularity waxes and wanes with demand. And as the demand for methamphetamine use increases, the gaps in treatment become more apparent.
Persse said he hasn’t seen a rise in the number of calls related to methamphetamine overdoses in his area. However, the death toll in Texas from meth now exceeds that of heroin.
Provisional death counts for 2017 showed methamphetamine claimed 813 lives in the Lone Star State. By comparison, 591 people died due to heroin.
The Drug Enforcement Administration reported that the price of meth is the lowest the agency has seen in years. It is increasingly available in the eastern region of the United States. Primary suppliers are Mexican drug cartels. And the meth on the streets is now more than 90 percent pure.
“The new methods [of making methamphetamine] have really altered the potency,” said Jane Maxwell, research professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s social work school. “So, the meth we’re looking at today is much more potent than it was 10 years ago.”
For Vaughn, who works as an outpatient therapist and treatment coordinator, these variables are a regular part of her daily challenge. So until the research arms her with something new, her go-to strategy is to use the available tools to tackle her patients’ methamphetamine addiction in layers.
She starts with writing assignments, then coping skills until they are capable of unpacking their trauma. Addiction is rarely the sole demon patients wrestle with, Vaughn said.
“Substance use is often a symptom for what’s really going on with someone,” she said.
Written by Carmen Heredia Rodriguez, Kaiser Health News.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
The post Meth’s Resurgence Spotlights Lack Of Meds To Combat The Addiction appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
Meth’s Resurgence Spotlights Lack Of Meds To Combat The Addiction
Why Is Google Dragging Its Feet In Eliminating Its ‘Boy Erased’ App?
It only took one day for the app to be taken down from the Apple store.
An app encouraging users that they can “recover” from same-sex attractions through prayer continues to be accessible on Google platforms weeks after Apple and Amazon removed it from their stores.
Truth Wins Out (TWO), an organization that campaigns against conversion therapy, launched a petition against the app last week. Though it’s been available for three years, Apple very quickly complied with removing the app, so now TWO is targeting Google to do the same .
TWO said in a statement: “By any standard, the app is awful. It brazenly compares homosexuality to an addiction. It casually trashes LGBT people as living ‘destructive lifestyles’.”
Gay conversion therapy is what they depict in the hit movie Boy Erased .
The Telegraph says Google has been accused of “foot-dragging” after it failed to follow the lead from Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, which removed this app from their online stores last month after being approached about it.
Wayne Besen, executive director of TWO, said that it is “unconscionable” that Google is still offering an online platform to this app.
Besen said: “We are hoping this is simply an oversight from a very large company, rather than an objectionable policy decision that would warrant further action.”
The post Why Is Google Dragging Its Feet In Eliminating Its ‘Boy Erased’ App? appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
Why Is Google Dragging Its Feet In Eliminating Its ‘Boy Erased’ App?
26 Must-See TV Shows for LGBTQ Viewers in Winter/Spring 2019
www.advocate.com/television/2019/1/16/26-must-see-tv-shows-lgbtq-viewers-winterspring-2019
Trump’s AG Nominee William Barr Dances Around LGBTQ Rights Stance
Barr claims he’s not homophobic, but believes LGBTQ rights must accommodate religion at all times.
www.advocate.com/politics/2019/1/16/trumps-ag-nominee-william-barr-dances-around-lgbtq-rights-stance
Seventh Victim ID’d in Lesbian Family’s Murder/Suicide
Jennifer Hart drove her wife and foster kids into the Pacific Ocean last year. Now only one child’s remains are unaccounted for.
www.advocate.com/crime/2019/1/15/seventh-victim-idd-lesbian-familys-murdersuicide
Nine Dallas men beaten, raped, and smeared with feces inside den of torture
At least one victim says he was urinated on before being smeared in feces. Another was reportedly raped with an object.
Merry Imbolg – Happy Groundhog Day
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