Overdose Prevention

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to help balance the budget by cutting out almost all Medi-Cal funding for more than 35,000 methadone maintenance patients. The nicest thing opponents can say about that idea is that it's penny wise but pound foolish, and the legislature seems to agree. But the Governator can still wield the line-item veto, so the fight isn't over yet.

Over the weekend, Newsweek published a leaked draft of the 2010 National Drug Control Strategy. No one is sure why it was leaked, or by whom. A pair of leading observers of federal drug policy dissect it for us.

Reed College in Portland, Oregon, has a decades-old reputation for rigorous academics and counterculture values. Now, after two Reed students died of heroin overdoses in two years, state and federal prosecutors are lowering the boom, starting with this weekends' annual end of school-year party.

Somebody overdosing, but his companions are afraid to call for help for fear of getting busted? You won't have to worry about that anymore in Washington state -- unless you're the dealer.

People are dying from drug overdoses at the rate of nearly two a day in Washington state. Now, the state Senate has passed a bill that could reduce that toll by encouraging people ODing or their friends to seek medical help.

New York City and national media have been abuzz all week over a city health department pamphlet that provides harm reduction tips to injection drug users. But despite the offensive led by a right wing tabloid and a handful of professional drug warriors, harm reduction won the battle -- but what about the larger war?

The Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference took place in Albuquerque last weekend. It was quite a show. Here's a scene report.

The Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference got underway Thursday in Albuquerque, and it looks like the biggest yet. Here's an initial report from the conference opening. Look for much more next week, too.

Nearly 40,000 died of drug-related causes in 2006, the vast majority of them overdoses. Dying on drugs is rapidly gaining on dying in car wrecks as America's leading accidental cause of death -- a grim demonstration of the failure of prohibition.

Drug overdoses -- both licit and illicit -- are the second leading cause of accidental death for adults in the US. Now, a member of Congress wants to do something about it, and the Drug Policy Alliance has some ideas.