Public health
fromCity Limits
3 days agoOpinion: Excise Taxes Can Help Fund Needed Addiction Treatment in NY
New York's alcohol sales generate $12 billion annually but do not address related health issues.
Proposition 36, a state ballot measure, enacted harsher penalties for minor theft and drug offenses, with proponents pledging the crackdown would lead to mass treatment to keep people alive, out of jail, and off our streets. Case records, however, suggest the state is largely failing to meet the central goal of getting people help and instead conducting mass arrests and incarcerating more people with addiction.
It felt like I had a needle through my back, and it was coming out my front, and I couldn't twist past it. Your mental health is affected. You get brain fog, you're tired, you're fatigued. You can't function as a woman and that's every day for 10 years.
The Alaska Department of Corrections does not provide comprehensive access to this life saving medication. "I'm gonna give you a little pinch," Spencer said, sliding the needle into a fold of skin on the patient's belly for the subcutaneous injection. Alaska's not an outlier. Despite the fact that those recently released from incarceration are some of the most vulnerable to dying from drug overdose, addiction experts say that many jails and prisons around the country don't provide medication treatment.
Gabapentin is an anticonvulsant medication that is FDA approved for the treatment of seizure disorders and postherpetic neuralgia-a chronic, often debilitating, nerve pain syndrome often linked to shingles. It is classified as an anticonvulsant and a GABA analogue, meaning it mimics the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which normally reduces nerve excitability.
It is one of the most common reasons that adults look for medical care. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are over 58 million adults who are living with doctor-diagnosed arthritis in the US alone. In addition to this, over 25 million people battle with daily limitations caused by joint pain. (CDC, 2024). Probably, even more concerning, is the fact that an estimated 15 million adults experience severe joint pain rated
Almost all Americans are familiar with posttraumatic stress disorder ( PTSD) and its long-term, sometimes devastating effects on people's lives-crippling anxiety, depression, disturbing flashbacks, sleep problems, irritability, concentration difficulties, and much, much more. About 70 percent of U.S. adults have experienced at least one major life trauma. The fact that so many of us experience trauma makes it easier to empathize with the 10 or so percent of people who go on to develop PTSD.
Low back pain is the most common and debilitating of all pain complaints. Heavy lifting can cause it, but so can sitting at a desk all day, especially if you have bad posture and poor back support. Think hunching over a laptop at your dining table. Most times, an acute injury causing lower back pain will get better on its own in a matter of weeks. But it also can become a more lasting problem, especially as you age. Now some new science suggests one reason for this could be that we've been approaching the inflammation that comes with back pain all wrong.
By creating one of the nation's first state health departments, lawmakers and elected officials in 1901 were taking a leadership role in public health that continues to this day. Take the issue of heart health: Just last month, Governor Hochul unveiled a budget proposal that makes major investments in our fight against cardiovascular disease. Healthy hearts start with healthy diets, which is why Governor Hochul included over $100 million for nutrition programs, food banks and food pantries in the Executive Budget.
From 2003 to 2022, annual overdose deaths in the United States rose from less than 26,000 to nearly 108,000-becoming the leading nonmedical cause of death, surpassing car accidents and gun violence combined. In Canada, overdose deaths increased almost tenfold in the same period. In both countries, the surge in deaths was supercharged by "synthetic" opioids such as fentanyl, the ultra-potent, lab-made narcotic that has come to dominate the supply of hard drugs.