02-22-2017, 11:46 AM
Quote:When Tyler Tabor was booked in a jail outside Denver on a spring afternoon in 2015, he told a screening nurse that he was a daily heroin user and had a prescription for Xanax. A friendly, outdoorsy 25-year-old with a son in kindergarten, Tabor had started using opioids after he injured his back on the job as a welder. When he was arrested on two misdemeanor warrants, his parents decided not to pay his $300 bail, thinking he would be safer in jail and away from heroin for a few days. Three days later, Tabor died of dehydration at the Adams County jail, according to a coroner's report. The alleged cause: drug withdrawal. A lawsuit filed by the Tabors against the county and Corizon Health, the jail's private health care provider, describes in chilling detail the three days of missed opportunities and seemingly callous medical care.Go to Jail. Die From Drug Withdrawal. Welcome to the Criminal Justice System. | Mother Jones
Quote:Each year, more than 40,000 Americans die from drug overdoses. That's on par with the annual death toll from HIV/AIDS at the peak of the US epidemic, in the late '80s and early '90s, and far more than are killed each year from car accidents or gun violence. More than half of those overdose deaths involved opioids, a class of drugs including heroin, Vicodin, OxyContin, and fentanyl. So dire is the epidemic of opioid addiction that it inspired a rare moment of political bipartisanship earlier this year, when Congress passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act to increase accessibility to addiction medications and the overdose reversal drug naloxone. Democrats tried to include $920 million in treatment funding, but Republicans blocked the move, saying they would address the issue during the appropriations process this fall.Drugs Kill More People Than Cars or Guns | Mother Jones