Day: 01/22/2016

Be careful out there

Mount Sinai doctor to be charged after allegedly performing sex act on drugged patient

NEW YORK – A Mount Sinai doctor turned himself in to the Manhattan Special Victims Division Tuesday after a patient accused him of sexually assaulting her.

David Newman, a prominent doctor and author, is expected to be charged with sex abuse after allegedly incapacitating a patient with pain medicine before performing a lewd act on her.

The 22-year-old alleged victim said she went to the Mount Sinai emergency room last Monday to be treated for pain in her right shoulder, according to police. She said she was placed in a private room where a nurse gave her morphine and an injection for inflammation.

When Dr. Newman arrived, he gave her another dose of morphine, according to the complaint, before examining her shoulder.

While falling in and out of consciousness, she said Newman started examining her shoulder, then moved down and began fondling her breasts as she lay in a morphine-induced haze. After that, she says she heard the sound of masturbation before he allegedly turned around and performed a lewd act on her, according to police sources…

A shot of morphine for shoulder pain? Did Dr. Newman order the first shot given by the nurse? Was he prescribing the morphine for pain or so he could incapacitate her? How many other times has he done this?

Thinking of you, Marie

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN0V02KT?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

(1/22/2016) Four dead in worst Canada school shooting in decade, suspect caught

The town’s acting mayor, Kevin Janvier, told the Associated Press that his 23-year-old daughter Marie, a teacher, was shot to death…

Dear New York Times

Re: How the Epidemic of Drug Overdose Deaths Ripples Across America (1/19/2016)
From: painkills2@aol.com
To: letters@nytimes.com, public@nytimes.com, publisher@nytimes.com
Cc: jmonahan@ix.netcom.com

Your publication is just one of many that has helped to create the opioid “epidemic.” (And don’t think that 100 million pain patients will ever forget that.)

I don’t know how you choose which “experts” to quote in your drug-war articles — or how you even determine who is actually an expert — but in the case of Jennifer Weiss-Burke from New Mexico, you’ve made a terrible mistake. Is there anything in this woman’s background, besides the tragedy of her son’s death, that would suggest she’s an expert in addiction and its treatment? Are you basing her expertise on the fact that the state has showered her with funds to open up her own addiction clinics (where they use reiki as a treatment option)?

Let’s look at a few of her online comments, shall we?

Jennifer Weiss · Top Commenter · Albuquerque, New Mexico

And one more thing. Since it looks like you hate cops, how many times has APD arrested your dumb butt for just being a jackass or slapping around your p*nis because no hooker in their right mind would ever touch you. So how many times have you been locked up?

Jennifer Weiss · Top Commenter · Albuquerque, New Mexico

Loretta Baca obviously you think your s*it doesn’t stink because you think violence begets violence. Wow, you’re more into death and destruction for your own gratification because your life is so boring and lacking of what is truly important. And you know what, I actually feel sorry for you. You are a pitiful excuse for a human.

“When you go right back to the same environment, it’s hard to stay clean,” [Weiss-Burke] said.

Actually, it doesn’t matter what kind of environment you return to, those who suffer from drug addiction will always have a hard time staying clean, especially if you believe that being drug-free is the only way to conquer addiction. There are plenty of parents who have sent their kids to different environments, only to result in the exact same problems.

The reputation of the NYT is not as good as it used to be, and issues like this are part of the reason why. I know the newspaper industry is going through a lot of changes, but there’s no excuse for crap like this. Are you a respected newspaper or a tabloid rag?

Johnna Stahl
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87114
(I’m too poor to have a phone)
painkills2@aol.com
https://painkills2.wordpress.com/

Once and for all: Drugs do NOT cause addiction

Posted at DrugWarRant.com on 1/19/2016:

NIDA has had a terrible track record when it comes to scientific inquiry, tending to cherry-pick the research it highlights to match its political anti-drug focus.

This is still true, and their social media pages are chock-full of fear-mongering nonsense. But once in a while, a tiny bit of truth trickles through.

Here’s one example: Childhood Maltreatment Changes Cortical Network Architecture and May Raise Risk for Substance Use — the article is from November, but was just recently highlighted on their Facebook page.

“Childhood maltreatment alters children’s brain development in ways that may increase their risk for substance use and other mental disorders in adulthood. In a NIDA-supported study, researchers found that young adults who had been maltreated as children differed from others who had not been maltreated in the connectivity of nine cortical regions. The differences could compromise the maltreated group’s basic social perceptual skills, ability to maintain a healthy balance between introversion and extroversion, and ability to self-regulate their emotions and behavior.”

And, of course, this flies in the face of NIDA’s usual talking points – that it’s drugs that cause addiction…