Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Sunday, August 12, 2012

SOS Needle Exchange Benefit Party w/ Tetherhorse, The Backup Razor, Shiny Mountains, & The Redlight District @ The Church House Saturday 8/18/12

Saturday 8/18/12

Tetherhorse
Indie, Folk, Rock, Acoustic, Pop
Santa Cruz

The Backup Razor
Punk Rock
Santa Cruz

Shiny Mountains
Indie, Garage, Rock
Santa Cruz

The Redlight District
Psychedelic Rock and Roll
Santa Cruz

RSVP ON FACEBOOK

Hey boys and girls, it's time for you all to squeeze your feet into your party shoes like a pair of baby kangaroos groping their way into a mothers pouch and skip on down to ye ol' church house. We, the denizens of this fine and wondrous establishment have decided it is time, HIGH TIME!!! for us to throw another rip roaring fiesta extravaganza. This time, however, you'll all be running wild and insane through our halls like a pack of wild boars whilst simultaneously supporting a good cause! Needle exchange! Yay! Fun Fun Fun!

Our Narcan/Naloxone program:
We do overdose prevention trainings for drug users, their families and friends. We teach people how to recognize and respond to an opiate overdose situation. We teach them about rescue breathing and Narcan (also called naloxone). We distribute take-home overdose rescue kits that contain injectible Narcan – a drug that, if used quickly enough, can reverse an opiate overdose and save a life. It has been used by paramedics and emergency rooms for over thirty years. Our Narcan is prescribed by Dr. Bill Morris (of the Janus Clinic). The intent is to have the Narcan immediately available in an overdose situation, to be administered by a trained friend or family member."

Each rescue kit costs about $30 - pretty cheap to save a life, but we're low on cash.

ShootClean.org's OD Prevention page

Our SOS Narcan flier

What is Needle Exchange? Glad you asked! SOS needle Exchange is an organization dedicated to helping prevent the spread of transmittable viral infections contracted through intravenous drug usage. Confused? Read this!

http://www.shootclean.org

So come one, come, all, to our Benefit party! Entrance fee is $6, which goes 100% to doing good things. You don't like Hep C do you? Then come to our party! This $6 buys you $6 in beer tokens which you can spend at your leisure! In our backyard.

Kegs include:
PBR
Penthouse Ale by Squabble Hollow Brewery (5%)- A hoppy California Pale Ale
Siamese Twin Ale by Uncommon Brewers (8.5%) - An organic double Belgian Ale


Scientists can now block heroin, morphine addiction

Wednesday, 15 August 2012
In a major breakthrough, an international team of scientists has proven that addiction to morphine and heroin can be blocked, while at the same time increasing pain relief.

The team from the University of Adelaide and University of Colorado has discovered the key mechanism in the body's immune system that amplifies addiction to opioid drugs.

Laboratory studies have shown that the drug (+)-naloxone will selectively block the immune-addiction response.

The results - which could eventually lead to new co-formulated drugs that assist patients with severe pain, as well as helping heroin users to kick the habit - will be published tomorrow in the Journal of Neuroscience.

"Our studies have shown conclusively that we can block addiction via the immune system of the brain, without targeting the brain's wiring," says the lead author of the study, Dr Mark Hutchinson, ARC Research Fellow in the University of Adelaide's School of Medical Sciences.

"Both the central nervous system and the immune system play important roles in creating addiction, but our studies have shown we only need to block the immune response in the brain to prevent cravings for opioid drugs."

The team has focused its research efforts on the immune receptor known as Toll-Like receptor 4 (TLR4).

"Opioid drugs such as morphine and heroin bind to TLR4 in a similar way to the normal immune response to bacteria. The problem is that TLR4 then acts as an amplifier for addiction," Dr Hutchinson says.

"The drug (+)-naloxone automatically shuts down the addiction. It shuts down the need to take opioids, it cuts out behaviours associated with addiction, and the neurochemistry in the brain changes - dopamine, which is the chemical important for providing that sense of 'reward' from the drug, is no longer produced."

Senior author Professor Linda Watkins, from the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder, says: "This work fundamentally changes what we understand about opioids, reward and addiction. We've suspected for some years that TLR4 may be the key to blocking opioid addiction, but now we have the proof.

"The drug that we've used to block addiction, (+)-naloxone, is a non-opioid mirror image drug that was created by Dr Kenner Rice in the 1970s. We believe this will prove extremely useful as a co-formulated drug with morphine, so that patients who require relief for severe pain will not become addicted but still receive pain relief . This has the potential to lead to major advances in patient and palliative care," Professor Watkins says.

The researchers say clinical trials may be possible within the next 18 months.

This study has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the United States and the Australian Research Council (ARC).

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news55261.html