An old friend of mine who still works the road full time confided in me that he was again having a crisis of faith. We have often talked about burnout, each of us having periods when we found it a struggle to uphold the highest standards of patient care. Not the medicine part, which is…
There has been much speculation about why fatal overdose deaths have been declining nationwide. Here are some of the reasons mentioned in a plethora of articles: 1. Increased Availability of Naloxone 2. Expanded Addiction Treatment 3. Shift from Injecting to Smoking and Other Safer Practices such a as Not Using Alone 4. Impact of Opioid…
Saturday morning my partner and I walked down to the pavilion by the pond in Pope Park to check out the heroin (fentanyl) bags that are easily found in the grass and on the pavilion floor, along with discarded syringes and other paraphrenelia. At least once a month I like to go down there to…
A man likely in his thirties buys $10 worth of cocaine from a Park Street dealer and then buys a bundle (ten 0.1 gram bags) of fentanyl from another for $15. He buys the fentanyl to keep withdrawal at bay and he buys the cocaine to give him the energy to collect enough cans and…
The monthly CDC provisional overdose death data was released on Wednesday, again revealing a continued decline in the nation’s overdose deaths. The data which covers a rolling 12-month period from January 2024 to December 2024 shows a 24.6% annual decline in reported deaths and a 28.7% decline from its peak rolling 12-month reported death high…
In February I wrote about opioid epidemic opportunists who were playing on people’s fears to make profits. Among them are the OPVEE people who are targeting police departments to try to get them to help market their high-dose nalmafene, a long lasting opioid antagonist that medical professionals believe is both unnecessary and dangerous. These opportunists…
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who park head first and those who back in. The numbers of those who back in are increasing every day. Like most in the older generation, I park head first unless there is an unusual situation. If I am in a lot when I know…
Tomorrow is Thursday and I am sad that The Pitt has finished its season 1 run of 15 episodes and there are no new episodes to watch. While I have a few criticisms of the show, overall, I thought it was the best medical TV show ever and among my top 5 favorites of any…
Medetomidine, an animal sedative, appears to be replacing xylazine as a significant adulterant in fentanyl and perhaps other drugs. According to reports from Philadelphia, one of the areas where xylazine first gained prominence, medetomidine was in 87% of samples of fentanyl in November 2024 compared to just 42% of samples which contained xylazine, while at…
This week, Attorney General Pam Biondi claimed President Trump had saved 119 million lives in the first 100 days of his administration through the nation’s drug seizure activities. Later in the day, in a cabinet meeting, she claimed the number of lives saved was 258 million. This claim is based on the US seizing 22.2 million…