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Almost 3,000 pounds of fentanyl in San Diego County between March and May, a 300% increase from the same time last year. Authorities describe the uptick in drug seizures due to a joint effort between law enforcement agents working in San Diego’s port. Customs and Border Protection agents have been working with Homeland Security to hunt down drug traffickers and stop them in their tracks.
A two-month-long enforcement effort netted a huge number of drugs. The busts, which took place over two months, netted 4,721 pounds of fentanyl and 1,700 pounds of fentanyl precursors. These drugs were headed to the streets to be pressed into pills. Instead, more than 200 arrests of alleged smugglers took place, and the government seized these drugs.
San Diego is a central hub for drug trafficking, leading to many people to addiction within the city and county. Addiction has been a significant issue in San Diego, as it has been in many other parts of the United States. The town has a complex history of addiction spanning several decades.
Drugs have always been an issue in San Diego. In the 1960s, the city grappled with heroin addiction. During the 1990s, the town had a surge of people who struggled with crack cocaine addiction and the violence associated with that. In the 2000s, however, the city succumbed to the addiction crisis caused by opioids.
Like many others, the city is still grappling with an opioid crisis. The rise of potent synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, has resulted in a surge in overdose deaths. The accessibility of these powerful substances often sold illicitly, has exacerbated the addiction problem, and strained public health resources.
Substance use among the homeless population has become a pressing issue in San Diego. Homelessness and addiction are interconnected problems. Many individuals often turn to drugs or alcohol as a coping mechanism. San Diego has implemented various programs and initiatives to address homelessness and substance abuse simultaneously, focusing on harm reduction, treatment, and housing solutions.
“We are an epicenter for fentanyl trafficking into the United States, and we know the immense responsibility that we bear to address this crisis,” U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said about the recent Blue Lotus Operation. “We are answering that call to action with hard work, a purpose, and a plan. Every milligram of fentanyl that we seize, and every smuggler, trafficker, and dealer we bring to justice, means less fatal doses on the streets of San Diego and beyond.”
During the operation, Homeland Security deployed eighty agents to work on drug trafficking in San Diego. In San Diego County, the two-month surge has resulted in a 300 percent increase in fentanyl seizures. There was also a 30 percent increase in defendants prosecuted for fentanyl-related crimes in the Southern District of California compared to last year.
The Blue Lotus Operation also seized fentanyl, which also tested positive for xylazine, creating a dangerous drug called “tranq dope” that leaves people physically addicted and causes gaping sores when they use it. The White House recently designated the combination of xylazine and fentanyl as an emerging threat to the United States on its growing role in overdose deaths. Xylazine is still a relatively new drug, but when a person overdoses, they may not wake up. Narcan has limited value in overdose reversal when a person has taken xylazine. It can help reverse the fentanyl overdose, but xylazine is a sedative, and there is currently no antidote to the drug.
San Diego is a great place to be in recovery and a recovery home; you’ll meet others with similar goals. Sober living is a great stepping stone for people who want to live in a stable, therapeutic environment. Give us a call to learn more about the sober lifestyle in our homes.
Fentanyl seizures at border continue to spike, according to the U.S. Department of Justice making San Diego a national epicenter for fentanyl trafficking. According to the DOJ release, more deadly fentanyl is being seized by border officials in San Diego and Imperial counties than at any of the nation’s 300-plus ports of entry, making this federal district an epicenter for fentanyl trafficking into the United States.
The San Diego Union Tribune reported recently about a California high school that made arrests after a student overdosed on fentanyl pills on campus during school. Notably the perpetrator used social media to market the pills. Using social media channels (like Snapchat) to market fentanyl laced pills is increasingly common, especially among teens, and often with predictably tragic effects
Researchers have sounded an alarm for the past few years about the rise in overdose deaths involving fentanyl. The majority of overdoses now involve the drug, which is 50-100 times as powerful as Morphine. Overdoses that involve fentanyl are usually deadlier because of the potency of the drug.
For people who have an opioid use disorder, there are many risks to take when buying drugs. Regular drug supply chains are strained, and China has outlawed the manufacture of oxycodone (aka Oxycontin) and fentanyl. Because of this, chemists that rely on illicit drug sales have been offering fentanyl either as an adulterant or alternative to other opioids. Chinese drugmakers funnel fentanyl through the Mexico border, and from there, it makes its way into heroin, Oxy, and other street (and internet) drug dealers.
Roneet Lev, an emergency room physician at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California, told Bloomberg that most of the overdose deaths she’s seen in teens are accidental overdoses. One of her young patients, 14 years old, died from a fentanyl overdose.
“The problem is both supply and demand,” she said. “There’s already a lot of fentanyl coming into our market, and now we have a pandemic where people are isolated and not working, or not in school. These teenagers probably don’t have a substance use disorder, they’re experimenting, making a bad choice, and they end up dead.”
Many cities and nonprofits say that harm reduction is an integral part of tackling the opioid epidemic. After all, many of the young people who are dying don’t even mean to take fentanyl. They often believe they’re taking a pill such as Percocet, Adderall, Ecstacy, etc. It may be the first time they have ever taken a drug at all.
Many law enforcement agencies are trying to get the word out about counterfeit pills and the dangers of fentanyl.
Some nonprofits offer fentanyl testing strips as a harm reduction measure that can test drugs for the presence of fentanyl. Then, the user can decide if they want to take it or flush it. Narcan, an overdose reversal drug, is also available to people who use opioids and other concerned community members. Carrying this drug can help reverse fatal overdoses, but when it’s a drug like fentanyl, reversal may require multiple doses of Narcan.
If you or somebody you love needs a safe living space to continue their recovery journey, sober housing may be the answer. We have an excellent, enthusiastic, peaceful environment where you can learn to live life on its terms, substance-free. Call us to learn more about our programs at 760-216-2077. Our treatment team is also very familiar with recovery from fentanyl and other opioids.
- By Philip, Milgram, MD
Worry, fear, boredom, anxiety, loneliness, escapism, insomnia; these are the emotions that plague our society. The plague that is COVID is making these human imperfections more frequent and more pronounced. There are healthy effective ways we can not only deal with these feelings and situations. But it is human tendency to take an immediate and effective way to escape: The Devil’s Drugs. They are readily (too readily) available. There is easy access to someone who can promise you the gates of heaven. You are invincible. And you want it now. From a friend or family member who has some. Or from a prescriber who will prescribe, sometimes inadvertently but often as a legitimate dealer. Hey, maybe it‘s even covered by your insurance. Maybe you know somebody who knows someone who can get it for you in a park or a parking lot. Trust me. You are not invincible. These are not your grandparent’s drugs. These synthetic drugs have a high addiction potential. I don’t think they should have ever been released to the public, like Quaaludes. You give these drugs to a thousand white mice…and a thousand whit mice will be pushing that button for more. Physiologically, we are not dissimilar from a white mouse. They use these same white mice to test the drugs and extrapolate to human consumption. WE WANT MORE OF THAT!!
These drugs cause what is known as hyperalgesia. Let’s say you stroke the hairs on your arm with a feather. These drugs make a stimulus that would be a tickle or an unpleasurable event and convert it to pain. What do you do? I WANT MORE OF THAT!!
Then you develop tolerance to the drug. Until you rapidly, sometimes within days, need more to get you to that place where you want to be. And you then know. I NEED MORE OF THAT!!
We have been very successful treating alcoholism and drug addiction to heroin, opiates with our innovative and experienced team and the magical molecule of NAD+ (Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide), which detoxifies and fixes your brain, relieving withdrawal symptoms and cravings with much greater regularity than your neighborhood rehab center. But these are The Devil’s Drugs. And they require an all out and effective therapeutic approach to avoid the gates of hell; loss of you job, your family, your money, your home. And finally you lose yourself and then you lose hope. Benzodiazepines (Xanax, Klonipen, Ativan, Ambien and the sort) are not a good solution. You solve a problem by creating another problem. But prescribers too readily whip out their prescription pads to give you a stopgap that may be as bad or worse than the original problem. Please don’t take Kratom either. Often the addiction to Kratom is worse than heroin. Unfortunately, it is readily available and touted as “natural”. When you are addicted to Kratom, you may be suffering such terrible withdrawals that you have to use through the night every two hours.
The best way to avoid this whole situation is to not allow these drugs into your body. Avoid them all-knowingly because I have here told you of their power, their danger, and the high percentage for your physiologic tendency as a normal human being to succumb to the power of these drugs. But it is human tendency to think you are different, stronger, better, even invincible. I WANT TO FEEL IT, NOW!!
We have an alternative therapy here in Carlsbad, with the magic molecule (NAD+) that is already present in every living animal and plant cell. And that the body naturally uses to detoxify, heal, pump up immunity, and create new neural pathways that results in less cravings, less withdrawal symptoms and a high degree of long-lasting sobriety, health, longevity and wellness. We help restore restful sleep, use additional therapies, and get you on the road to a new life free from the influence of these drugs.
NAD+ is the magic. There is an art to the administration of it—starting with the best NAD+. Then there are therapies that enhance and propagate the NAD+ effect. Then, once off the drugs, you need to deal with the emotional, physical, depression, anxiety, any underlying mental disease, situation, and establish an ongoing program of healthy nurturing lifestyle.
There is such a thing as recovery, let us show you.
Phillip Milgram MD
San Diego has kept in line with a disturbing trend; overdoses and opioid use is up among younger people, and overdoses are a frequent cause of 911 calls. In fact, according to the San Diego Police Department, officers responded to 100 more overdoses in 2020 than the prior year. And although people are staying home more, addiction isn’t taking a break.
Arrests of people on opioid-related offenses related to overdose phone calls are up by nearly fifty percent. (Police sometimes arrest users who remain with a person who has overdosed if they possess drugs or if they or the overdose victim has outstanding warrants.)
Opioids are a popular street drug but also highly addictive. There has been a surge in addiction as the pandemic has drawn on. Users of opioids may have evolved from other addictions or gateway drugs. Some people become addicted to a prescription from a doctor, while others purposefully will misuse a drug to numb or entertain themselves. Some people who overdose have relapsed from a long-term stint in recovery.
Boredom, loneliness, and anxiety during the pandemic have caused an uptick in almost all addictive behaviors. People are using more drugs to self-medicate troubling feelings. Many people have felt despair and depression with economic loss. All of the above can be factors contributing to substance use disorders.
People in their 20’s and 30’s have been dying at a higher rate during the pandemic, however, experts note that these numbers were already rising in late 2019. Overdose victims from opioids in the past year usually have had fentanyl in their bloodstream, a drug that is fifty to one hundred times as strong as morphine.
While some people use fentanyl on purpose, many users are unknowingly exposed to it through illicit drugs. Some dealers will add it to cocaine or pass it off as Oxycontin. Because it is harder for drugs to flow across borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drug dealers have been fentanyl to add “punch” to the drugs they sell.
People who relapse on opioids and other narcotics are statistically more likely to overdose. There are many reasons for this. For one thing, many people, especially during COVID-19, are using opioids all alone. If they overdose, nobody can call for help for them. People who have abstained for years will also use the amount of the drug they used to use, believing they will still tolerate it. Instead, they overdose because the drug is too strong.
Preventing relapse saves lives. A good aftercare program or sober living program can help you or your loved one stay sober in the long-term and learn to live life on life's terms without the use of substances.
If you or somebody you love has a problem with alcohol or drugs, help is available! While COVID has changed some procedures for starting the treatment process, recovery is still very much open to everyone!
Relapse prevention is another important component of staying sober. A structured, caring, sober living environment helps many people get sober and achieve long-term recovery.
At By The Sea Recovery, we offer the best sober living experience in California, creating a place of growing, learning, and respect for everyone who walks through the doors. We want to help you stay sober and offer camaraderie, structure, and tools for your journey. Get in touch by calling us at 760-216-2077. We’re happy to answer questions!
Over 1000 meetings. You bump into everyone in recovery from the gas station to the grocery. Is this good?
Well, being alone and isolated leads to the city of no bueno. Accountability, friendship, support and activities will make anyone worried or stress think twice about being lonely.
By the Sea recovery is San Diego's premiere sober living home. Call us for help & answers on how to live in a great sober house.
Here's a list of AA meeting finder as well as sober activities in San Diego.
Everyone's first thought. Must be overwhelming. Impossible. Luck. Miracle. Well, there seems to be a pattern with those that 'got it'.
Lots of meetings. Sponsorship. Stepwork. Personal growth. Education. We've seen it all. From big book thumpers to higher education, there seems to be an underlying factor: being connected and being thirsty for growing as an individual.
Paradoxically the inner growth is balanced by the connections for it is easy to get lost wanting to be 'spiritual'. The sense of bond in early recovery is spiritual in itself given the distance from others during addiction. The vulnerability of sharing and being open with others in sobriety psychologically develops trust and belonging, a highly elating feeling and chemically supportive to the healing.
http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/federal-legislation-expected-on-sober-51995/
https://www.bytheseasandiego.com
By the Sea recovery is San Diego's premiere sober living home. Call us for help & answers on how to live in a great sober house.Eminem Shares Previous Struggle With Drugs That Pushed Him To 230 Pounds : LIFE : Tech Times
The brave rapper and entertainer Eminem opens up abut his demons, difficulties and journey to health. We commend this talented artist that could inspire the over 22 million people in recovery from substance use disorders in the United States. We forget it affects everyone no matter our backgrounds, but that the vulnerability and honesty of this amazing artist can bring life to those not seeing beyond the haze of today. Thank you Eminem.
