[u]
Court Case Marks Dangerous Trend With Prescription Drugs</u>



A Sioux City man will spend a decade behind bars for dealing the prescription drugs that killed teenager. It's widely known that drug addictions can kill, but what about simply experimenting. For one Iowa teen, that's all it took.

Methadone. It's a highly addictive narcotic, commonly used to help detoxify heroine addicts. But it can also be deadly. That's what happened to Akron, Iowa teenager Nicholas Clay. Clay experimented with the drug at a so-called pill party.

Plymouth County Chief Deputy Craig Bartolozzi, says, "That's where we hear kids are just taking pills from everywhere. They come together and they throw them in a big bowl and it's just a 'help yourself' you really don't know what you're taking or how it's gonna affect you."

Clay passed out and never woke up. And now the man who gave him the drug is headed to prison. 39 year old Stuart Barton has pled guilty to two counts of delivering Methadone.

Bartolozzi says, "Court finds there's a factual basis for accepting the defendant's pleas."

Barton says he traded the Methadone in exchange for Marijuana hoping to wien himself off the drug that he knew was dangerous. Officials say much can be learned from Barton's dealings, but more so.

Teens need to be aware of the harmful effects, not only Methadone, but all prescription drugs can have on different people.

Bartolozzi says, "You know, you're taking prescription drugs that you really don't know how it's gonna react to you. Prescription drugs obviously react different to everybody. It can lead to brain damage, death."

Delivery of a controlled substance is equivalent to a class "C" felony. Barton's 10 year sentence will begin two weeks from today



-Sean





"Without a program life is like a soup sandwich. No matter how you make it, you always wind up with a mess."



"Every time you express gratitude or compassion for any aspect of yourself or someone else, you breathe life in." ~Mariah Fenton Gladis~
Tales of a Wounded Healer



"Just Cause You Got The Monkey Off Your Back Doesn't Mean The Circus Has Left Town." --George Carlin

<center>Waukesha woman guilty in methadone overdose deaths</center>




Waukesha — A 34-year-old Waukesha woman was convicted Thursday of two counts of first-degree reckless homicide in connection with providing methadone on separate occasions to two people who overdosed and died.

Nina E. Pudil was found guilty by Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge J. Mac Davis after she entered Alford no contest pleas to the charges.

In an Alford plea, a defendant does not acknowledge guilt but concedes there is sufficient evidence for conviction.

In April, Pudil was charged in connection with the death of Donald G. Arnold, 40, who was found dead March 31, 2007, at the Airport Lodge in the City of Pewaukee, where he lived, according to a criminal complaint.

Pudil was accused of giving Arnold liquid methadone and was with him the night before he died, the complaint states.

Pudil also was charged in February in the methadone overdose death of Nola K. Heinowski, 46, of Waukesha. Pudil was accused of selling liquid methadone to the Heinowski, who was found dead at her home Oct. 15.

The Alford no contest pleas were entered by Pudil as part of an agreement in which eight other felony drug-related charges filed against Pudil in a separate case were dismissed. Those charges included manufacturing and delivering suboxone and oxycodone, maintaining a drug trafficking place and obtaining a controlled substance by fraud.

Assistant District Attorney Kevin M. Osborne said the state would recommend that Pudil be sentenced to 15 years in prison and 10 years of extended supervision when she is released.

Davis does not have to follow that recommendation and could sentence Pudil to 25 years in prison on each of the homicide convictions.

Part of the reason Pudil, who has no prior criminal record, entered pleas to the homicide charges was to reduce her possible prison term, her attorney, Mark Powers, said.

In addition to a potential 50 years in prison on the homicide charges, Pudil was facing a maximum 67 1/2 years in connection with the eight other drug-related charges.


http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/59651497.html


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<center>Jan 15, 2010
The Methadone Poisoning “Epidemic”</center>


by Jonathan J. Lipman, PhD

Abstract

Death and morbidity associated with methadone treatment has increased dramatically in recent years, largely in the population prescribed this drug for pain control rather than addiction maintenance. Inadvertent overdose is becoming increasingly common, likely in part because the drug’s acute pain-relieving effect lasts only 4 to 6 hours, yet it has a very long and variable plasma half-life of 24 to 36 (in some studies 15 to 55) hours, is stored in body tissues, and toxic accumulation occurs with too-frequent consumption. Adverse effects are most common in patients treated with methadone in combination with other drugs. Both cardiac and respiratory systems are vulnerable targets for the drug’s toxic actions, and other co-administered drugs can interactively increase the risk of death through a variety of mechanisms including direct central nervous system depression of respiration, idiosyncratic respiratory vulnerabilities, and lethal cardiac arrhythmias. Idiosyncratic factors also play a part in methadone’s cardiac toxicity, and risk factors are well characterized, though perhaps not sufficiently widely known and understood by key stakeholders. The recent change in FDA labeling requirements for the drug—and the November 2006 posting of a government warning regarding its use in pain treatment—has not yet reduced morbidity and mortality associated with methadone as reported in the MedWatch database for the first quarter of 2007.


Category: General
Posted by: Katie
Fifty million Americans are partially or totally disabled by pain, and 45% o

Methadone antidote easily available, trial into toddler's death told.
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By Gwendolyn Richards, Calgary Herald March 8, 2010


CALGARY — A teaspoon of methadone would have been enough to kill a toddler who died with a "significant amount" of the drug in her bloodstream, Alberta's deputy chief toxicologist testified Monday

But a dose of an opiate antidote available at city hospitals could have saved the girl's life, Dr. Peter Singer told the court on the sixth day of proceedings in the trial of the little girl's parents.

Jonathan Hope and Lisa Guerin (also known as Lisa Hope) are charged with manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide the necessities of life for their daughter, 16-month-old Summer Hope.

When Summer died in April 2006, it was initially believed to be due to sudden infant death syndrome.

Singer ran tests on the little girl's blood, liver, bile and other fluids to try to determine a cause of death. They showed Summer had a lethal amount of methadone in her system.

Testing showed she had 0.42 milligrams per litre in her blood, an amount Summer said would be lethal to an adult or a child.

Methadone is a synthetic opiate used to treat those with addiction issues. People prescribed to take it acquire a tolerance, but even small amounts can be toxic to those who have never taken it or other opiates.

However, there is an antidote for opiate overdoses, including methadone, that is available in hospitals' emergency departments, Singer said.

"It's used all the time for overdoses. It's been used for children who have overdosed," he said.

Narcan can be administered successfully while the person is still awake. After the person has fallen into a coma there may be some brain damage, which would be irreversible, he added.

In the morning proceedings, a doctor with the clinic that Hope used to attend testified that even residual traces of methadone can be enough to put a person in a coma within 30 minutes.

Dr. Ian Postnikoff, a doctor with the methadone program formerly known as First Street Clinic, said at the time of Summer's death, Hope was receiving daily doses of 280 milligrams of methadone.

"That's a relatively high dose," he said.

Postnikoff also told the court Hope had at one point qualified to take part in the "take-home carry" program, which allowed him to take a week's worth of methadone to consume at home instead of attending the pharmacy daily. He was given two weeks' worth of the drug for the Christmas holidays.

In January of 2006, Hope was moved back to a program that had him taking his dose at the clinic's pharmacy in front of a witness.

He was on the daily witness ingestion program in April 2006 when Summer died.



Methadone antidote easily available, trial into toddler's death told.



-Sean

__________________
\"Without a program life is like a soup sandwich. No matter how you make it, you always wind up with a mess.\"



\"Every time you express gratitude or compassion for any aspect of yourself or someone else, you breathe life in.\" ~Mariah Fenton Gladis~
Tales of a Wounded Healer



\"Just Cause You Got The Monkey Off Your Back Doesn\'t Mean The Circus Has Left Town.\" --George Carlin

Onset of symptoms after methadone overdose
The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, Volume 25, Issue 1, January 2007, Pages 57-59

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Abstract: BackgroundMethadone ingestion may cause delayed coma and require naloxone infusion. Few studies exist regarding the time development of symptoms following methadone overdose in adults.MethodsAfter a brief training period, reviewers who were blinded to the purpose of the study completed a standardized data collection sheet. Two consecutive years of poison center patient encounters were reviewed. Age, outcomes, coingestions, vital signs, clinical manifestations, hospital admissions, and mortality were abstracted. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The first reviewer was designated to extract the data. The second reviewer conducted a review of 20% of all the charts for a κ value to be calculated.ResultsIn total, 44 cases of isolated methadone overdose in patients older than 18 years were identified. A mean age of 32.5 (18-58) years and a mean presumed ingestion of 106 mg of methadone was calculated. Of the 44 patients, 32 received naloxone for symptoms consistent with opiate toxicity. All symptoms occurred within 9 hours of methadone ingestion, with a mean symptom onset of 3.2 hours. All patients had resolution of symptoms within 24 hours. No deaths were recorded. The κ score for interreviewer reliability was 0.69, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.58 to 0.73.LimitationsThis was a retrospective study that was limited by patient history.ConclusionAcute methadone toxicity typically results in symptoms within 9 hours of ingestion.





...

__________________
\"Without a program life is like a soup sandwich. No matter how you make it, you always wind up with a mess.\"



\"Every time you express gratitude or compassion for any aspect of yourself or someone else, you breathe life in.\" ~Mariah Fenton Gladis~
Tales of a Wounded Healer



\"Just Cause You Got The Monkey Off Your Back Doesn\'t Mean The Circus Has Left Town.\" --George Carlin

Woman linked to 2 more drug overdose deaths

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Kimberly Sell, the 38-year-old Germantown woman charged in Ozaukee County court this week in the prescription drug overdose death of a Fredonia woman, is linked to at least two other drug overdose deaths in 2009, authorities said Wednesday.

Sell is a person of interest in the April death of her fiancé, Ted Olla, who lived with her, and the Christmas Day death of Ian Hegmegee of Menomonee Falls, Germantown Police Chief Peter Hoell said.

Sell allegedly sold methadone on Dec. 20 to Kati Lynn Hammen, 21, who was found dead the next day at her Fredonia residence, according to a criminal complaint. Sell was charged Tuesday with first-degree reckless homicide in Hammen's death.

On Wednesday, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Sandy Williams set bail for Sell at $75,000. Sell remained in the Ozaukee County Jail on Wednesday afternoon.

A preliminary hearing to review the charges against Sell is scheduled for March 19. If convicted, Sell could be imprisoned for up to 40 years.

An investigation into the drug overdose death of Olla, 48, is not active but it is not closed, Hoell said. Police were not able to build a case against Sell.

Sell called police the afternoon of April 15 to report that she had found Olla unresponsive on a couch in the apartment they shared. He was pronounced dead a short time later at Community Memorial Hospital.

Toxicology tests found cocaine, methadone and several other drugs, including traces of opiates - codeine and morphine - in his blood, Hoell said.

At the hospital, Olla's relatives told investigators that they were aware he had abused methadone in the past without a prescription, according to a Washington County medical examiner's report.

Hegmegee, 25, was found unresponsive from a cocaine overdose on Oct. 23 at Sell's apartment on Legend Ave. in Germantown and was taken to Community Memorial Hospital in Menomonee Falls, Hoell said.

He remained in a coma until he died Dec. 25, said his mother, Jennifer Hegmegee of Menomonee Falls.

"My son got caught up in a drug scene," she said Wednesday when contacted by a reporter.

Sell allegedly told investigators that Ian Hegmegee was unresponsive for nearly one day before she called 911 on Oct. 23, his mother said. "Kimberly Sell needs to be taken off the street," said Hegmegee's uncle, Kirk Laabs of Menomonee Falls. Germantown police are continuing to investigate Hegmegee's death. "We have not been able to make a case to request criminal charges against Sell at this time" in Hegmegee's death, Hoell said Wednesday.

One reason for the lack of criminal charges in the Hegmegee and Olla deaths was the absence of a witness, other than Sell, according to Hoell.

The investigation into Hammen's overdose benefited from a witness, her fiancé, Brad Baumann.

Baumann accompanied Hammen to buy methadone from Sell, a criminal complaint says. Baumann and Hammen ingested methadone after leaving Sell's residence, he told police. Baumann found Hammen's unresponsive body the next morning.




Woman linked to 2 more drug overdose deaths - JSOnline




-Sean

__________________
\"Without a program life is like a soup sandwich. No matter how you make it, you always wind up with a mess.\"



\"Every time you express gratitude or compassion for any aspect of yourself or someone else, you breathe life in.\" ~Mariah Fenton Gladis~
Tales of a Wounded Healer



\"Just Cause You Got The Monkey Off Your Back Doesn\'t Mean The Circus Has Left Town.\" --George Carlin

Hi Sweet Sean,II allways enjoyed this thread,and now I need it to keep me SCARED of methadone.

luv ya babe THANK YOU!!!!!!!!