Author: fentvic Admin
Rutherford County man found guilty for mailing drugs that killed Iowa vicitm
RUTHERFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WSPA) – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa announced that a man was found guilty after mailing heroin and fentanyl that killed a man in Dubuque, Iowa.
According to evidence in the trial, James Adam Earwood, 38, of Lake Lure, North Carolina mailed a package of heroin and fentanyl to another person on November 18, 2021. Officials said that Earwood was living in North Carolina at the time and the victim was living in Dubuque, Iowa.
The victim used heroin and fentanyl and overdosed in the parking lot of a local business in Dubuque and survived. According to officials, one month later the victim received another package of heroin and fentanyl in the mail from Earwood on December 17, 2021. The victim used the heroin and fentanyl and died shortly after. He was found dead by hotel staff in a hotel in Dubuque, Iowa.
Evidence revealed that Earwood was using social media platforms on the dark web to arrange transactions of heroin and fentanyl with other people. Investigators tracked down at least one other package of heroin and fentanyl that Earwood had sent.
Earwood is being held by the United States Marshals until he can be sentenced. A sentencing date has not been set yet.
Read the full story on the WSPA TV7 website.
Put naloxone in schools so it can save lives
Drug-overdose deaths among people 10–19 years old jumped 109% between 2019 and 2021 in the U.S. To save lives, the AMA supports widespread access to safe and affordable opioid overdose-reversal drugs.
“We are facing a national opioid crisis and it’s affecting our young people at an alarming rate. Just as students carry prescription inhalers to treat an asthma attack, we must destigmatize substance-use disorders and treat naloxone as a lifesaving tool,” said Bobby Mukkamala, MD, chair of the AMA Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force.
“Fortunately, an overdose tragedy can be reversed if quick action is taken with these safe and effective medications like naloxone,” Dr. Mukkamala said. “Allowing teachers and students to carry these medications is a commonsense decision and will no doubt result in young lives saved.”
Continue reading “Put naloxone in schools so it can save lives”Fentanyl super labs in Canada pose new threat for U.S. opioid epidemic
At a rural property an hour outside Vancouver in October, Canadian police found 2.5 million doses of fentanyl and 528 gallons of chemicals in a shipping container and a storage unit. Six months earlier, they raided a home in a cookie-cutter Vancouver subdivision packed with barrels of fentanyl-making chemicals, glassware and lab equipment.
Thousands of miles away outside Toronto, police in August found what is believed to be the largest fentanyl lab so far in Canada — hidden at a property 30 miles from the U.S. border crossing at Niagara Falls, N.Y.
U.S. authorities say they have little indication that Canadian-made fentanyl is being smuggled south in significant quantities. But at a time when record numbers of people are dying from overdoses in the United States, the spread of clandestine fentanyl labs in Canada has the potential to undermine U.S. enforcement efforts and worsen the opioid epidemic in both nations.
Investigators in Canada say the labs are producing fentanyl for domestic users and for export to Australia, New Zealand and, they assume, the United States.
“It’d be hard to believe it’s not occurring,” said Philip Heard, commander of the organized crime unit for police in Vancouver, a city hard-hit by fentanyl overdose deaths. “Most police leaders I’ve spoken to believe our production outstrips what our domestic demand is.”
The Canadian labs are a curveball for U.S. authorities whose efforts to combat fentanyl are focused on the southern border with Mexico. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has installed about $800 million worth of powerful scanning and detection equipment at land border crossings since 2019. Nearly all that technology has been deployed along the U.S. southern border, where CBP confiscated nearly 27,000 pounds of fentanyl during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the most ever.
Continue reading “Fentanyl super labs in Canada pose new threat for U.S. opioid epidemic”Barbara Walsh Speaks to Wake County School Board on Naloxone in Schools
Good Answers to Hard (Insensitive,Inappropriate) Questions
I was utterly amazed at the questions people plied me with not long after Dominic’s accident.
They ranged from digging for details about what happened (when we ourselves were still unsure) to ridiculous requests for when I’d be returning to my previous responsibilities in a local ministry.
Since then, many of my bereaved parent friends have shared even more questions that have been lobbed at them across tables, across rooms and in the grocery store.
Recently there was a post in our group that generated so many excellent answers to these kinds of questions, I asked permission to reprint them here (without names, of course!).
So here they are, good answers to hard (or inappropriate or just plain ridiculous) questions:
Continue reading “Good Answers to Hard (Insensitive,Inappropriate) Questions”NARCAN PSA on TikTok
Two arrested after nearly 120 pounds of fentanyl seized in traffic stop, Iredell County Sheriff’s Office says
Officials seized enough of the drug to kill every person in North Carolina more than two times over.
IREDELL COUNTY, N.C. — Two people are in jail after the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office seized almost 120 pounds of suspected fentanyl mixed with cocaine during a traffic stop on Sunday.
The two people, one from Mexico and the other from New Mexico were traveling on I-77 from Charlotte to Philadelphia in a tractor-trailer when they were stopped by the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office Interstate Criminal Enforcement Team (ICE) for a traffic violation.
During the traffic stop, ICSO K-9 Groot indicated the presence of narcotics in the tractor-trailer. After searching the vehicle, deputies located 120 lbs of suspected fentanyl mixed with cocaine, which has a street value of $3.75 million.
Deputies said that they seized enough of the drug to kill every person in the entire state of North Carolina – two and a half times over.
Read the full article and watch the video on the WCNC website.
DEA Interview with Barbara Walsh
On September 25, 1993 Barbara Walsh sat down with the DEA for an interview. The DEA was interested in hearing Barbara’s story about how Sophia died and how Barbara came to start the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina.
Overdoses were finally on the decline in NC. The pandemic reignited the crisis.
Fatal overdoses in North Carolina had finally started to decline.
After steadily rising for years, deaths dropped by 7% in 2018, despite the growing prevalence of fentanyl, an opioid even more potent and deadly than heroine.
The state had aggressively invested in fighting the opioid crisis — it expanded access to evidence-based treatment, sent Narcan to at-risk areas and reduced medical dispensing of opioids.
Low overdose numbers in 2019 seemed to confirm the efforts were paying off.
People in the NC Department of Health and Human Services started believing it was possible to meet a goal they had set back in 2016: to cut the expected overdoses in 2024 by 20%.
“There was a lot of hope in those two years before the pandemic,” said Mary Beth Cox, a substance use epidemiologist DHHS.
Then COVID-19 hit.
“Who knows where we would have been if the pandemic hadn’t happened?” Cox said.
INCREASED ISOLATION, DISAPPEARING TREATMENT AND SUPPORT GROUPS
Loneliness and social isolation became more common. It became harder to send Narcan out into the community. Support groups and treatment centers transitioned online.
“You can do group therapy on the phone or in video, but it’s still not true connection,” said Ellen Stroud, who directs addiction and management operations for the state’s opioid response. “And that’s really a huge part of recovery.”
Disturbing data began emerging.
In the first year of the pandemic, fatal overdoses in the state shot up by 40%. In 2021, deaths increased by an additional 22%.
Continue reading “Overdoses were finally on the decline in NC. The pandemic reignited the crisis.”