Fentanyl

 

Jeffrey St. Clair

Teenagers in the US are now 2.5 times more likely to die than in Western Europe and the gap is widening: guns, car crashes, suicides and fentanyl, seem to be the driving forces.

+ A new study out of NYU calculates that more than 80% of New Yorkers who inject drugs test positive for the opioid fentanyl, despite only 18% reporting using it intentionally.

+ Between 2019 and 2021, California’s opioid-related deaths spiked by 121%. Most of these deaths were linked to fentanyl.

+ A Wall Street Journal story on the possible bankruptcy of a drug-maker called Mallinckrodt, which was the largest producer of opioid pills in the U.S. from 2006 to 2014, opens with this graph: “A group of hedge funds is devising a plan to cut off about $1 billion meant to help victims of opioid addiction, opening the way to keep some of the money for themselves.” How are these people still walking around, dining on haute cuisine, shanking balls at Bedminster, sailing up the Hudson on yachts?

+ Joy Alonzo, a professor of pharmacology, gave routine lecture about the opioid crisis to students at the University of Texas Medical School. One of the students in the class, who is the daughter of Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, accused Alonzo of disparaging Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick. Patrick’s chief of staff rang up the college administration to complain and within hours Alonzo was suspended from her job, with university Chancellor John Sharpe sending Patrick’s chief of staff a text saying: “Joy Alonzo has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation re firing her. shud [sic] be finished by end of week. jsharp” Alonzo, one of the country’s leading experts on opioid addiction, has taught in the system for more than a decade.