Tag: drugs

Commentary: COVID Redux

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Masks People

Life is hard if you do not learn from your mistakes. With Covid, political leaders and public health authorities engaged in a series of missteps, miscalculations, and manias that amounted to an extreme overreaction to the disease.

First, statistical models overstated the risk of the disease by an order of magnitude. Then, even after these miscalculations became apparent, other extreme measures like lockdowns, mandatory masking, coercive vaccine mandates, and a million other indignities ensued. In the end, almost everyone got Covid, almost everyone survived, and, while the economic countermeasures increased our national debt by 30%, the economy soon recovered too.

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Pennsylvania Clean Slate Expansion Passes House Overwhelmingly, Heads to Senate

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives this week approved a bipartisan expansion of the commonwealth’s “clean slate” policy affecting those with low-level, drug-related felony convictions.

The measure, which passed 189-14, builds on a 2019 policy that made the Keystone State the first in the nation to enact automatic record-sealing for summary offenses as well as certain nonviolent misdemeanors and arrests that didn’t lead to convictions. That reform benefited 1.2 million commonwealth residents. The bill that now awaits consideration by the state Senate would seal records of those who were convicted of minor drug felonies but thereafter stayed crime-free for 10 years.

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Bill Banning Injection Sites Passes Pennsylvania Senate, Awaits House Consideration

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s GOP-run state Senate this week passed legislation banning supervised injection sites, sending the bill to the state House. 

Such locations — also called “safe injection sites,” “safe consumption spaces” or “overdose prevention sites” — permit addicts to take illicit substances, mainly opioids, without fear of prosecution. Advocates of the injection centers say they are an important means of avoiding overdoses and drug-related disease transmission. The nonprofit Safehouse has been working to open such a location in Philadelphia. 

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American Academy of Pediatrics Urges Drugs and Surgery to Treat Childhood Obesity

Susan Berry, PhD

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is recommending more aggressive treatment of childhood obesity, including the use of pharmaceutical and surgical interventions for those as young as 12 or 13.

In its new guidance released Monday in the organization’s journal Pediatrics, AAP dismisses the sole approach of monitoring still-growing children to see if independent changes families and children can make on their own leads to success. Such a wait-and-see method is largely useless, the authors of the guidance say, given that “14.4 million children and adolescents” are now affected by obesity and its long-term health consequences.

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Pennsylvania Senate Committee Passes Mastriano Bill to Strengthen Overdose Data Gathering

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania Senate panel this week passed a measure sponsored by Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) to strengthen the commonwealth’s tracking of overdoses.

All Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee supported the bill. It awaits consideration of the state House of Representatives.

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Mastriano Announces Measure Toughening Penalties for Fentanyl Pushers in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) on Thursday announced he will soon introduce legislation to strengthen penalties for fentanyl pushers whose sales result in deadly overdoses. 

The senator is naming his measure “Tyler’s Law” after Tyler Shanafelter, an 18-year-old constituent who bought what he believed was Percocet but turned out to have acquired a fentanyl-laced product. The young man fatally overdosed. 

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CBP’s Air and Marine Operations Interdicted 62 Tons of Drugs in First Three Months of Year

The Center Square

Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations interdicted 62 tons (124,000 pounds) of illicit drugs in the first three months of this year, CBP reports, working with international, federal, state and local partners.

“Collaboration keeps us all safer,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said of their efforts. “CBP AMO works with U.S. and international partners to stem the flow of illicit narcotics. Through the end of March, AMO has contributed to the seizure of over 124,000 lbs of narcotics by partner agencies.”

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On Crime, Drugs, Mental Illness, Pennsylvania Local Authorities See a Resource Problem

The Center Square

A Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee hearing on crime and public safety dwelled on two issues: the need for more funding and officers to address crime, and the lack of mental health support for struggling people.

Two panels spoke to a number of Republican senators; one comprised local law enforcement officers and the other a state judge, public defender, and district attorney.

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Authorities Confiscate 150,000 Fentanyl Pills in Largest Seizure in Oregon’s History

Admin
fentanyl pills on the hood of a vehicle

A joint federal and local law enforcement operation in Portland, Oregon, recently led to the largest single seizure of fentanyl in the state’s history, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The March 1 seizure included around 150,000 counterfeit prescription pills containing fentanyl and 20 pounds of suspected bulk fentanyl, the DOJ said in a press release. The contraband reportedly had an estimated street value of around $4 million.

The drugs were confiscated as a result of the arrest of four drug traffickers, the DOJ said. The ringleader of the group, Ufrano Orozco Munoz, 27, was allegedly involved in a conspiracy to traffic fentanyl from Mexico and other areas for distribution and sale in Oregon.

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Commentary: The ‘Runner’s High’ May Result from Molecules Called Cannabinoids – the Body’s Own Version of THC and CBD

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Woman running on the road

Many people have experienced reductions in stress, pain and anxiety and sometimes even euphoria after exercise. What’s behind this so-called “runner’s high”? New research on the neuroscience of exercise may surprise you.

The “runner’s high” has long been attributed to endorphins. These are chemicals produced naturally in the body of humans and other animals after exercise and in response to pain or stress.

However, new research from my lab summarizes nearly two decades of work on this topic. We found that exercise reliably increases levels of the body’s endocannabinoids – which are molecules that work to maintain balance in the brain and body – a process called “homeostasis.” This natural chemical boost may better explain some of the beneficial effects of exercise on brain and body.

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DEA Directive to Stop Saying ‘Mexican Cartel’ Was the Biden Administration’s Way of ‘Appeasing’ Mexico, Recently Retired Agency Officials Say

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
Two law enforcement officers standing in the back of a truck

The directive for Drug Enforcement Administration officials to not use the term “Mexican cartel” came directly from the Biden administration to ease relations with the Mexican government, two recently retired DEA officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The DCNF exclusively obtained an email in August that instructed DEA officials to “now avoid saying ‘Mexican cartel’” when speaking with the media. The email was sent as drugs continued to surge across the U.S.-Mexico border.

One recently-retired DEA official told the DCNF that when the new administration came in, the Department of Justice (DOJ) required DEA to submit news interview requests for approval. The retired official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the DOJ declined many of the national news requests on top of the language guidance, but eventually eased up and allowed some to do local interviews where he used the term “Mexican drug cartel” and called each by its name.

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