ILLEGAL DRUGS

Phoenix House is the latest casualty in an escalating funding crisis for Texas treatment centers as the state struggles with startling increases in overdose deaths, particularly among young people.

The Republican from Texas has combined attention to border issues with efforts to address deadly overdoses, including ideas that are opposed by some in his party, such as decriminalizing test strips.

Lawmakers are passing laws in an attempt to slow the rise in fentanyl overdoses, but drug advocates warn the opioid is mostly a booster for other illegal drugs.

Pregnant moms on Medicaid will get health care coverage for a year, patients will get more detailed billing and nurses will get help with school loans. But efforts failed to gain steam for legalizing fentanyl test strips, increasing the pool of mental health professionals who accept Medicaid and expanding Medicaid benefits to more Texans.

Texas lawmakers want tougher criminal penalties for possession of delta-8 and fentanyl. But that would mean much more work for the crime labs handling most of the drug testing for the state’s 254 counties.

The bill would take fentanyl test strips off the state’s “drug paraphernalia” list, meaning it would no longer be a crime to carry them.

The “One Pill Kills” campaign is funded with the help of a federal grant, and the statewide Narcan distribution is being paid for with funds from Texas’ settlement agreement with opioid manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.

Police often can’t tell if a cannabis vape pen is derived from marijuana or legal hemp, like the delta-8 products on display in gas stations across Texas. That doesn’t stop them from making felony arrests in high schools.

Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans have expressed support for legalizing fentanyl test strips, which help users identify whether the drugs they are planning on taking contain the deadly synthetic opioid.

While not detailing how the distribution might be funded, Abbott said the medication, Narcan, should be distributed to law enforcement agencies as well as some hospitals and schools.

As overdoses skyrocketed amid the pandemic and the fentanyl crisis, advocates across the state are working discreetly to distribute these supplies as part of a practice to combat substance use disorder known as harm reduction.

Abbott directed the Department of Public Safety to boost efforts to collect intelligence on cartels and investigate gangs in Texas that support drug and human smuggling.

The state’s federally funded “More Narcan Please” program ran out of money in January, in part due to high demand. Advocates say Texas should invest more in the harm reduction effort.

Alyssa Pastrana was 21 years old when she died of an accidental fentanyl overdose at her home in Abilene.

Another hearing on the matter is scheduled for Nov. 5.

The state and its political subdivisions could get up to $1.5 billion from the settlement. But some local governments are considering pursuing their own lawsuits against drug makers and distributors.

A majority of Texans believe the state is on the right track, while a plurality thinks the country is on the wrong track, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.