Weekly action items and updates from GHC #FairShare4Harlem
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| STRIVING FOR A HARLEM WHERE ALL PEOPLE CAN THRIVE
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| SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN REPORTS: Racial Disparities - Federal Money For Addiction Care Flowing to White Communities |
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| Federal resources, such as grants to support local opioid use disorder clinics and programs, tend to favor white populations. According to 2021 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: |
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77 percent of the clients treated with grant funding were white, 12.9 percent were Black. |
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Research has also shown that there is a bias among health-care providers against using medication-assisted treatment (MAT), which combines FDA-approved drugs with counseling and behavioral therapies. Substance use specialists consider it the best approach to the opioid use problem.
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| The three medications approved by the FDA are buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone. Buprenorphine and methadone are synthetic opioids that block brain opioid receptors and reduce both cravings and withdrawal. Naltrexone is a postdetox monthly injectable that blocks the effects of opioids. Very few insurance providers in the U.S. cover all three medications, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the full range of medications is far less available to Black people. |
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Research suggests that economics and race influence who receives which medications. |
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Buprenorphine is more widely available in counties with predominantly white communities, whereas methadone clinics are usually located in poor communities of color. |
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| MEDIA REPORT: Safe Injection Sites for Drug Users Are a Tough Sell to Foundations |
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| Providing a place for drug users to take illegal substances in relative safety may have seemed too risky for many grant makers. The idea has sparked opposition from residents of neighborhoods where the supervised injection sites are planned and from some in law enforcement. But a pending Department of Justice decision may clear the way for additional foundation grants.
Historically, philanthropy has mainly supported other approaches such as educating people about the dangers of drug use, financing rehabilitation centers, and advocating for tougher penalties to punish people who use or sell drugs.
To win people over, Philanthropy.com believes public-health leaders will have to provide hard evidence that the safe sites don’t lower the quality of life in the neighborhoods where they are set up but that they lower hospital and ambulance costs, reduce transmission of hepatitis and HIV, and, most important, are leading to a drop in fatal overdoses.
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| REPORT FROM CALIFORNIA: Fentanyl Seizures Totals |
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| The federal Drug Enforcement Agency's fentanyl seizures in California were up nearly 600% in 2022. Last year, California alone saw 30,000 lbs of fentanyl seized by the DEA - not including local police, state police, and other agency seizures.
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| 30,000 lbs of fentanyl is enough to kill every American, twice. |
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