Changing The Narrative is a network of reporters, researchers, academics, and advocates concerned about the way media represents drug use and addiction. Our mission is to help journalists and opinion leaders provide accurate, humane, and scientifically-grounded information in this contested terrain. We offer expert sources —including people with lived experience of the issues — and up-to-date, fact-checked, and evidence-based information on news and controversies.
https://www.changingthenarrative.news/
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The founder of Drug Policy Alliance argues that the current laws are a waste of money and ultimately harmful
More and more Americans agree that people with drug problems “deserve treatment, not punishment,” that “we can’t incarcerate our way out of the drug problem,” and that it’s a waste of taxpayer resources to keep locking up people whose only offense is possessing drugs for their own use.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/united-states-decriminalize-drug-possession-nadelmann-760001/
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As we reported previously, scientists from the University of New Mexico have been studying how access to marijuana may help alleviate the opioid crisis, declared a national emergency by President Trump. Their study has now been published in the journal PLOS One, with the researchers concluding that there is “clinically and statistically significant evidence” that increased cannabis use led to patients cutting down on opioids and improved their quality of life.
The study analyzed the health data of 66 patients who were using opioids habitually to manage their severe chronic pain. 37 of the patients were enrolled in a medical marijuana program between 2010 and 2015 while 29 patients in the control group were not.
The scientists found that patients using cannabis were 17 times more likely to stop their prescribed opioids and five times more likely to lower their daily dosage of opioids. On average, they cut their doses in half. Comparatively, the patients not enrolled in the medical marijuana program actually increased their opioid usage by more than 10%.
http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/how-legalizing-marijuana-may-end-the-opioid-crisis
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The clinically and statistically significant evidence of an association between MCP enrollment and opioid prescription cessation and reductions and improved quality of life warrants further investigations on cannabis as a potential alternative to prescription opioids for treating chronic pain.
Study: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0187795
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MPs passed the Liberal government’s bill to legalize cannabis Monday evening, sending the legislation down the hall to the Senate for further study and debate.
The legislation was largely supported along partisan lines, although it secured the support of the NDP and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. The final vote was 200 MPs in favour, with 82 against. Conservative MP Scott Reid voted for the bill after he polled constituents in his eastern Ontario riding, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, and found a plurality supported the Liberal plan.
A last-ditch Conservative effort to delay the bill — and send it to the Commons health committee for further study — failed by a vote of 83 to 199 with some Bloc Québecois MPs voting with Tory legislators. Conservative opposition will now fall to their national caucus colleagues in the Red Chamber, where some senators have already signalled they are prepared to give the bill a rough ride. Some Tories have said the government’s timeline for legalization, July 1, 2018, is far too ambitious.
Continues: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cannabis-legalization-legislation-1.4421910
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Press conference for the new report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy calling for an end to all criminal and civil penalties for drug consumption and possession for personal use. The Global Commission on Drug Policy comprises 23 high-level members, including nine former Heads of State and government and a former Secretary General of the United Nations.
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‘Taking a New Line on Drugs’ assesses the situation in the UK as regards rising health harm from illegal drugs, with reference to their context within the wider ‘drugscape’ of legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco, and sets out a new vision for a holistic public health-led approach to drugs policy at a UK-wide level
From a public health perspective, the purpose of a good drugs strategy should be to improve and protect the public’s health and wellbeing by preventing and reducing the harm linked to substance use, whilst also balancing any potential medicinal benefits. RSPH is calling for the UK to consider exploring, trialling and testing such an approach, rather than one reliant on the criminal justice system.
Read more: Taking a New Line on Drugs