Young people die using/abusing drugs

Young people use/abuse drugs. Young people die from using/abusing drugs. We need to stop young people from dying from drug use/abuse. (The same goes for older people, but it always seems more shocking when it is young people who die. Is more potential lost?)

I was reading an interview with Dr Drew Pinsky (currently rehab doctor to the stars) recently and he sure makes it sound tough. Although he wasn’t talking about young people in particular, he laid out the 3 events that motivate change in his experience, i.e. motivate folks to quit abusing drugs:

Near death experience (i.e. the drug abuser nearly dying)
Looking in the mirror and feeling genuine disgust
Loss of your children, having them taken away (particularly true of women)

I feel there must be other ways to motivate the desire to make the life change involved in quitting the abuse of the drugs, particularly in young people. Or do we work at instilling self-disgust, if his motivating events are all-inclusive. The younger the person is when we begin to intervene the less entrenched the drug abuse behavior is. That should make available more intervention options. Of course, prevention is an even better goal to drug abuse prevention.

“Just say no” isn’t working, as evidenced by multiple studies. We need real, evidence-based intervention strategies. Scaring them straight doesn’t work. Their minds are still developing, but their intellect is there. Interventions need to use that fact.

There has to be something that we can do. The 24 year-old young lady didn’t need to die today.

Suicide is not chosen

Truism/quote from the final page of the 2007 Illinois Suicide Prevention Strategic Plan

“Suicide is not chosen; it occurs when pain exceeds resources for dealing with pain” Dr. David Conroy

“Good” Heroin v. Tainted Heroin Causing Deaths

As I mentioned in my talk the other day, the movie “American Gangster” among other things, shows what happens in an area (Harlem in the 70s) when the quality/purity of heroin improves. It is somewhat easy to miss, but before the consumer base stabilizes there are a number of addicts that die because they aren’t used to the less cut heroin suddenly available on the streets. They continue to use the amount of drug that they were using and it becomes an overdose before they realize it.

Something similar is apparently happening locally, as well as elsewhere in the country. We are seeing what looks like an increase in deaths due to heroin overdose (it is a bit early in the course to call it a trend, but it looks like it). Local law enforcement initially felt the deaths were due to “tainted” heroin, i.e. heroin cut/mixed with something that was causing the deaths in these folks. We have in the past seen fentanyl, a much more lethal drug, mixed in or replacing the heroin, causing similar deaths.

It was the opinion of my office that the deaths were more likely due to purer (“stronger”) heroin. Our toxicology testing has bourn that out. There is really good heroin on our streets.

I also warned the teens the other day that that purity also makes it more tempting to try this very addicting drug. You can snort it instead of using a needle. The numbers of those addicted will take longer to surface, but I suspect that that will grow as well with the increased purity. Teens, in particular, must be educated to not try the drug, their developing brains are even more susceptible to its addictive properties.

“Good” heroin is not a good thing. It contributes to all the problems inherent in the addicted population; physical problems, social problems, problems with the law. It contributes to death. Our tools consist of law enforcement, education and awareness, and treatment. All must be brought to bear on this problem.

Informative and Cautionary Coroner Talk

As I alluded to in my post yesterday, I spoke with a group of 40 students at Stevenson High School yesterday. I told them about what the Coroner and his “Office” does (in some detail, I had an hour and 15 minutes). Who we are in our office and what we do (often a bit more than is done in other coroner offices). I answered a number of questions. We discussed causes of death, manners of death (natural, accident, suicide, homicide and undetermined), ways of identification, post-mortem entomology, all manners of stuff “coroner”.

It was a bit tricky because the instructors had already written the test questions based on my talks the last 2 years and I don’t talk from notes, so I can’t necessarily guaranty repetition of all the material from one year to the next. I was prompted to cover an entomology point by a question from one of the instructors, so I must have got the other material, thankfully for the test-takers.

Most importantly, at times hopefully cleverly and at times blatantly, I peppered my talk (as I always do) with tips and reminders useful in their forestalling death. Honest warnings about drugs, recommendations about making good choices and not taking chances.

Interesting, informative, cautionary, I do my best. Besides, as I told them, giving those types talks are my favorite part of the job.

Are the dead too heavy?

What are we to do, our bariatric equipment is failing/breaking?

“Bariatric equipment”, in this case, is the fancy way to designate the heavier duty equipment we purchased to handle the heavier decedents we are tending to encounter. First our body lift, rated to handle 700 pounds, bent and the weld broke part way through lifting a female a few weeks ago (under warranty, so the company has replaced the damaged parts). Next our hydraulic morgue cart gave out under the strain of holding a large decedent (it was old anyway, so it was “retired”). Then last night our new transport cart (rated also at 700 pounds) broke while transporting another decedent to our van to bring him back to the office for autopsy. (It took 5 people to lift the decedent and the cart into the vehicle.)

Obesity is reaching (has reached) epidemic proportions. It is increasing the risk to my staff in lifting and moving folks. It is requiring heavy-duty equipment (that may not hold anyway). As I told a group of teenagers I gave a talk to today, do all you can to not get, or die, obese.

Death by Suicide or Lacking Access to Healthcaring?

(It is by intention that I wrote “healthcaring”. How caring is it that we allow so many people in our country to not have access to healthcare?)

How many more of these will we see? These words are from a suicide note left by an individual recently:

I didn’t call an ambulance because I’m not working any more and my insurance has run out.

My health has been getting worse and worse so this is not unexpected.

Please forgive any mess I leave behind.

It leaves me speechless.

Co-sleeping can be deadly

A reminder that co-sleeping with an infant can be deadly:

…the cluster of deaths is reason enough for doctors and public-health officials to repeat their warnings about sharing a bed with young children.
"The best way to keep something from happening is not to do it in the first place," said Dr. William Cotton, president of the Ohio chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
"The bottom line is, we suggest that you don't co-sleep."