Drug deaths in the US, No. 1

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For the first time since 1990, the number of annual drug overdose deaths in the US has declined. The 5 per cent fall reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is almost entirely due to a drop in deaths from prescription opioid painkillers. Does this mean the opioid crisis has peaked?

The early data predicts that there were 68,500 drug overdose deaths in the US in 2018, down from 72,000 the previous year. But it is unknown whether overdose deaths will continue to fall.  The CDC data shows that overdose deaths from fentanyl, synthetic opioids, cocaine and methamphetamines are still increasing, which is an ominous sign.

Drug overdose deaths in the US related to prescription opioids rose from just over 3,400 in 1999 to about 17,000 in 2017. This dramatic upwards trend reflects a nation-wide epidemic of opioid use and abuse. Recent data from the US Drug Enforcement Agency revealed that between 2006 and 2012, 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills – two common prescription opioids – were distributed in the US. That’s about 248 pills per person!

The epidemic has hit US states differently, and these new numbers bear that out. Deaths continued to rise in some eastern states where the use of illicit fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid, is spreading. But deaths are dropping in some midwestern states where local governments have expanded treatments for addiction and monitoring of prescriptions.

Even with this recent reduction in overdoses, tens of thousands of people are overdosing on opioids each year. The recent decrease may be due to increased availability of naloxone – which blocks the effects of opioids and is used by emergency medical practitioners to reverse an overdose – and better training to use it.

If emergency treatment, rather than reduced drug use, is largely behind the fall, this would mean an increasing number of US adults are living with substance abuse disorders. Prescribing restrictions mean many of these are likely being pushed towards using street drugs.  (an edited version of an article by Chelsea Whyte, New Scientist. Aug 2019)

However you look at it 68,500 drug overdose deaths (in 2018) are tragedies as well as a scandal.  If this number were lost to physical violence it would be called a war. I sympathise with those in constant pain, but knowingly pushing or enabling the use of habit-forming drugs should be classed a crime.  Writing as someone in constant mild back pain, my personal prescription is exercise and physical therapy with a very occasional ibuprofen to reduce swelling.  Live with it.  It’s part of getting older (or, at least, that’s my philosophy, Epicurean or not).

Sunscreen toxic for reefs

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Toxic for reefs

As of January next year, visitors to Palau, an island country in the western Pacific, will be prohibited from buying or using a range of sunscreens. The country has classified products containing any of 10 commonly used sun filters and preservatives as “reef-toxic”, as they are thought to harm coral reefs. Other places have followed suit, and similar bans will come into effect in 2021 in Hawaii and in Key West, Florida.

Craig Downs at Haereticus Environmental Laboratory in Virginia and his colleagues ran laboratory experiments to assess the problem. They found that immature corals exposed to oxybenzone, an ingredient that is commonly used in sunscreens, die.

The corals became deformed and pale in colour, and were unable to eat, as depicted in the images above. “Their mouths just opened, and it looked like a horror movie scream,” says Downs. “They were as good as dead in the first 8 hours.”

Sunscreen manufacturers have said that lab-based experiments can’t tell us what happens in the real world, but more bans are likely. “We have one reef, and we have to do one small thing to protect that,” Teri Johnston, mayor of Key West, was quoted as saying before the city’s vote on sunscreen. “It’s our obligation.”.  (Jessica Hamzelou, New Scientist Aug 2019)

But if you don’t use sunscreen you can get cancer.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  And the warming oceans are destroying the reefs in any case.

Tomorrow: problems for humans using sunscreens. And then I will try to find something cheering to talk about!

 

A hard border is simply unworkable

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The Guardian, on 7 August,  ran an interesting article on the “border” between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The hard border is not currently there because of the terms of the Good Friday agreement, underpinned by the fact that both the UK and Ireland are EU states. If Britain leaves the EU with no deal, there will be an international border between two entities with disparate health regulations, tax schemes and immigration policies, meaning it will need to be fortified once more.

The writer, Séamas O’Reilly, points out that, after the Good Friday agreement, the old customs checkpoint at the end of his garden was sold so that a large family home could be built in its place. The couple who live there might object to having a customs outpost erected in their bedroom. The building immediately next door is in the Republic of Ireland, and was formerly the Irish customs post. It’s now a kickboxing gym.

There are 300 miles (482km) of border like this, built on and now privately owned, with family homes, petrol stations, cow sheds and kickboxing gyms.  To re-erect a hard border across Northern Ireland would be the most expensive and logistically arduous engineering, staffing and planning job in UK or Irish history. It would take a great deal more than 85 days and £2.1 billion. And even if it were undertaken it would still be a bad idea, even if it promised a massively improved economy and huge social improvements.  In other words, a hard border in Ireland is simply unworkable.

But for Brexiteers there has to be a barrier between the two parts of Ireland, otherwise the much- resented East Europeans and others can get unimpeded access to Britain via Ireland, making the whole idea of Brexit and “control of our own borders” moot.

The only intelligent option for the extremist Brexiteers is to throw up their hands, abandon the Protestant majority in the North (rapidly becoming a minority anyway), and do what should have been done decades ago – declare a united Ireland. This is about as likely as the Republicans in the US agreeing to civilised gun laws. Which illustrates the fact that the Brexiteers never paused to think about the detail of what they were doing.  I dare say none of them have ever been and looked at the old border between the Republic and Ulster (P.S: I have).

 

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Rich poseurs

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You will recall that when Notre Dame cathedral caught fire there was a huge outpouring of horror and concern.  One of the few things about it that warmed the heart was the rapidity with which people offered money for the re-building , which President Macron pledged would be within five years.  Most notable were the financial pledges from the super-rich families of France, like the.  Pinaults of Gucci and  Arnaults of Louis Vuitton and their like. Nearly 600 million Euros were promised.

Three months have gone by.  A senior official at the cathedral commented, “The big donors haven’t paid. Not a cent”.  There have been a lot of small donations, but nothing from the big names, who received all the credit while giving no more than a fraction of the money. And this despite a huge 66% tax relief on charitable giving.  There is an annual cap on charity donations, which might be a reason for staggering the generosity, but no one has proffered this as a reason for the total silence.  As Aditya Chakrabortty commented in The Guardian they are “all press release and no cheque”.

But then the richest man in the world, who runs Amazon, is said to give absolutely nothing to charity, staggered or not.

Charitable giving is both necessary and a pleasure for those influenced by Epicurus and wanting a better, more just and equal world.

Recycling stuff

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The townspeople of Eskilstuna in Sweden live in one of the most environment-friendly towns in the world, transformed from a grimy steel-producing place to a town with buses and cars powered by biogas and electricity, low carbon combined heat and power plants and effective recycling.

But it is best known for a shopping mall devoted to taking in surplus-to-requirements goods donated by the residents, and then re-selling them to fellow residents.  The scheme is a huge success. No domestic waste goes to a landfill.  This way, people pick up for a song furniture, pictures, electric and other goods while others find homes for things they no longer want.  Apparently this is a profitable as well as a useful development that could be adopted everywhere.

“Waste-not-want-not” was not a phrase used by Epicurus in his non-consumerist epoch, but were he alive today, he would be advocating more ideas like it. He would save money on things and spend time with people, exchanging ideas and enjoying life.

Were I young and energetic again I think I would like to copy this, maybe in Yorkshire, famous for the carefulness and canniness of its people, and their liking for bargains.