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Friday, April 28, 2017

Baltimore City braces for overdoses after pain clinic shut down

BALTIMORE —Authorities have shut down a pain clinic in north Baltimore after police raided it this week.

Offices of the Westside Medical Group in the 4400 block of Falls Road were closed Thursday. People who went to the door of the clinic Thursday afternoon found a notice that said, "The office of Dr. Kofi Shaw-Taylor is closed." The notice had phone numbers to call for help, including the Maryland Crisis Hotline, (800-422-0009), and the Baltimore City Health Department.

The Health Department issued a warning Tuesday after federal, state and local law enforcement shut down the clinic.

"We sent out the alert in order to let our partners in law enforcement, in emergency departments, fire departments and EMS and other outreach workers know that there may be an increase in overdoses that are occurring," Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ever since the crack down on even legitimate pain management practices, which try their best to weed out frauds and abusers, the heroin trade and epidemic has been on the rise. When these places are closed suddenly it hurts even those who go for legitimate reasons no place to go to the medications they have become accustomed to having and needing. This leaves going into terrible withdrawal. Stopping these meds suddenly is just as risky as stopping any other medication suddenly which your body has become dependent on, not necessarily narcotics, there are plenty of medications with the warning not to stop taking them suddenly. It has become very difficult to get into a legitimate pain management clinic and sometimes you have to wait so long you go into withdrawal, which is very unpleasant, so to avoid it some people go to the streets for drugs to keep from going into withdrawal. Since there is no dosage control it becomes real easy to overdose accidentally. Thus your heroin and heroin overdose epidemic was born, from the crack down one the pain medications. And yes just like anything else you have those who abuse and game the system but it has ended up punishing those seeking legitimate care and proper use of these drugs so they can go about their daily lives without being in extreme pain. Without these meds I would not be able to work and contribute to society and would be forced to apply for disability and become a dependent of the state, something I personally have no desire to do. I would rather work, pay taxes and feel I am contributing to society and not be a dependent of it!

Anonymous said...

April 29, 2017 at 1:01 AM

no one ever said any of the laws they pass, or the ones that enforce said laws, make any sense whatsoever.

Anonymous said...

This war on legitimate need for pain relief.

Makes one wonder is the government protecting the sales of Illegal Drugs. Doing all they can to increase illegal sales.

Some believe the CIA and NSA both receive massive funding by running illegal drugs.

This war sure makes me wonder if it is true.