High Truths on Drugs and Addiction

High Truths on Drugs and Addiction presents SEASON FINALE Live Stream of December 9, 2022.  Featured experts reflex on 2022 and share High Truths hopes for 2023. Dr. Roneet Lev, podcast host, Emergency and Addiction Physician Dr. Bertha Madras , Drug Policy Expert, Harvard Medical School Dr. Libby Stuyt , Psychiatrist Colorado Dr. Jessica Ristau , Internal Medicine and Addiction Physician, Nationa...

Can you use less opioids and still have less pain? Orthopedic surgeons use to be #1 in total number of opioid pills prescribed, now there are innovative solutions in decreasing surgical pain. Dr. Scott Sigman is a national and internationally recognized leader in Opioid Sparing Surgery.  He is an Orthopedic Surgeon that specializes in the knee and shoulder.  He has been in clinical practice for ov...

CReDO , Community Response to Drug Overdose, brings together public health, public safety and prevention in order to prevent overdoses. Eva Lee, PhD is Professor and Director of the Center for Operations Research in Medicine and HealthCare at Georgia Institute of Technology, a center established through funds from the National Science Foundation and the Whitaker Foundation. The center focuses on b...

Drug Consumption Rooms, Injection Facilities, Overdose Prevention Centers, Supervised Injection Facilities, Safe Consumption Facilities, and Harm Reduction Center - these are the various terms used for a medically supervised place to use drugs. What is the science behind these sites? John S. Searles, Ph. D. was the Substance Abuse Research and Policy Analyst and Chair of the State Epidemiological...

Daniel Puerta is one of the way too many daily victims of illicit drugs, V.O.I.D. Did Daniel overdose, poisoned, or murdered? Listen to his father Jaime, president of V.O.I.D. who is turning Daniel's memory into action in saving other children. Jaime Puerta is a United States Marine Corps Veteran, and the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Puerta & Associates, Inc.; a small Interpreting bu...

Sara Whaley worked on a model to make sure opioid settlement dollars are distributed fairly and effectively. The  historic pattern with tobacco has been: Health Claims - Normalize Use - Health Harms - Lawsuits. Then again with Opioids: Health Claims - Normalize High Dose Use - Health Harms Lawsuits. Big Pharma will be paying $32 Billion for lying about the harms of chronic and high dose prescripti...

Drug Trends are important for public health and public safety.  As a physician if there is a new disease such as COVID or Monkeypox, I need to knew the signs, symptoms and treatment. Similarly if there are new drugs and poisoning I need to be able to make the diagnosis and apply appropriate treatment. That is why find it important to work with law enforcement and our medical examiner who are the f...

Tyler's Law, SB 864 is a California Law signed by Governor Newson in September 2022 that would require all hospitals to include fentanyl whenever a urine drug screen is ordered in a hospital setting. Most people who learn about the bill ask, "isn't that already happening?" Surprisingly, no. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that does not show up on routine hospital opiate screens. To detect fentanyl...

Is vaping helping people quit smoking or creating new smokers? In a simulation model, scientists calculated 3000 years of life gained in smokers who quit through vaping. They also calculated 1,500,000 years of life lost in teens and young adults who started vaping who otherwise would have never smoked. 3000 years gained verses 1.5 million year lost.  What a terrible public health choice. Dr. Willi...

Chris lost everything and ended up in jail. There he discovered his love for cooking. He now feeds the "homeless", or who he calls the outside community. Chris's cooking is given for free and with love, with a taste that will challenge Phil's Bar-B-Q. Should you give the outside community money? How should you treat people who live outside?  Chris shares his opinion. Christopher Ibanez is the seni...

Methadone Clinic give methadone, but can they use other medications to treat addiction or assist with other drugs such as methamphetamine? Listen to the conversation with our nation's leader of opioid treatment programs, Mark Parrino. Mark W. Parrino, MPA President, American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, AATOD Mr. Parrino has been involved in the delivery of health care and s...

Is drug testing important? Does it make a clinical difference? I discuss this question with Drs. Dawson and Passik from Millennium Health. Millennium Health Millennium Health is an accredited specialty laboratory with over a decade of experience in medication monitoring and drug testing services , helping clinicians monitor use of prescription medications and illicit drugs and analyzing specimens...

Pamela McColl met the Pied Pipers of Pot and watched them lead Canada, American and a global following of marijuana. Where there warning signs of the medical and societal harms before legalization? Pamela McColl   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_McColl Principal and Publisher, Grafton and Scratch  Pamela's Book The Pied Pipers of Pot: Protecting Youth from the Marijuana Industry When the prod...

Paramedics are doing more than naloxone for drugs overdoses. They are starting addiction treatment and Suboxone right on the streets.  Listen to Martha Waller and Tara Tucker talk about their prehospital Suboxone project. This is a pilot project and there are still kinks to work out before this can be implemented on a wide scale. But Martha and Tara are innovators, think outside the box, and bring...

Rarely is there a new medication that is really new and innovative. Imagine a drug that deactivate methamphetamine within 2 minutes and excretes it from the body within 2 hours. CS1103 is that drug. Listen to this episode from the drug developers at Clear Scientific and learn about this magically innovation. Clear Scientific Clear Scientific was founded in Cambridge, MA, in 2019. The heart of our...

How do you talk to your children about drugs? There is increase normalization and commercialization of drugs, especially marijuana, preying on kids. If parents don't talk to kids about drugs, they will learn about it from Snap Chat or Drug Dealers. Addiction is a disease on the young brain with serious health harms.  Dr. Shannon Murphy is a pediatrician and expert in messaging to children and youn...

Where do doctors go for advice if they need help treating patients with addiction? NCCC is like the National Poison Center but with a focus on drug addiction. NCCC provides free advice from national experts to doctors and clinicians treating patients with addiction. On this podcast hear from the NCCC experts on how doctors give advice to other doctors. NCCC - National Clinician Consultation Center...

How many second chances should people get on drug addiction and treatment? Listen to Danny Darko Marciano as he drives to the Grammy's in Las Vegas and judge for yourself and Danny shares his dramatic life journey. Danny Darko Marciano is a recovered heroin addict and ex-convict turned Children's book author and entertainer. He has been nominated for best new rapper by the San Diego Music Awards i...

Does marijuana cause mental illness and violence? Alex Berenson published a doctorate type research in his book - Tell Your Children. Alex is also known for being cancelled by Twitter for his views on the COVID vaccine. Alex Berenson was born in New York in 1973 and grew up in Englewood, N.J.  After graduating from Yale University in 1994 with degrees in history and economics, he joined the Denver...

Candy (Candace) Lightner , founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and  We Save Lives  is recognized nationally and internationally as the moving force behind reshaping the nation's attitude toward drunk driving (as well as drugged and distracted driving). Recognizing her years of dynamic leadership, the media voted Ms. Lightner as “one of the most influential American citizens of the twen...

What are the environment impacts of cannabis grows? The carbon foot print for tomato grows is 2 kilograms, much different than for cannabis grows is 3600 kilograms. Cleaning up illegal cannabis grows cost more money than cleaning up an oil spill. Hear from Dr. Greta Wengert, and ecologist working in California public lands and witnesses the effects of illegal marijuana grows on water theft, damage...

What are the leading issues for Hospitals and Heathcare? Is it COVID, medial education, universal healthcare? And what about the over 100,000 people a year who die from drugs? Scott Becker shares his perspective as a national expert in hospital and healthcare affairs. Scott Becker is a partner in the healthcare department at McGuireWoods . He previously served on the Board of Partners of the firm...

This is a special episode of High Truths featuring the voices of California Cannabis Victims. These are parents who's children died because of cannabis addiction. They brave the cruelty of people who bully them, judge them, and hit them when they are down. They risk attacks in order to spare other parents from similar tragedy. May the memory of these children be a blessing and may other children l...

Dr. Josh Bloom is an organic chemist who debunks Junk Science in his work with the American Council on Science. Hear what he has to say about opioids and pain, fentanyl, methamphetamine, benzodiazepines, and cannabis. Do Dr. Lev and Dr. Bloom agree or disagree on issues of addiction? You judge. Dr. Josh Bloom, ACSH's Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, earned his Ph. D. in organic che...

What does Dr. Profeta tell college kids about drugs? He shows them what it's like for him, as an emergency physician, to tell their parents they died of an overdose. That's the worse horror for a doctor. Dr. Louis M. Profeta is a nationally recognized, award-winning writer and Emergency Physician at St. Vincent Hospital of Indianapolis. He is clinical instructor of Emergency Medicine at Indiana Un...