Treatment Atlas, a free digital resource partially funded by the state, allows users to compare addiction treatment programs and see whether facilities use approaches supported by evidence. Advocates say the tool gives families in crisis clearer information at a moment when quick decisions can have life-or-death consequences.

David Sheff, the author of “Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction” and “Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy,” has urged state leaders to preserve funding for the program. Sheff has written extensively about his son Nic’s addiction to methamphetamine, which began when Nic was 18, and the years his family spent trying to navigate a treatment system he has described as confusing and opaque.

Sheff said his family had advantages many others do not, including insurance, resources and the ability to seek another program when one did not work. Even with those advantages, he said, finding appropriate care was difficult. For families without reliable information or financial flexibility, the search for treatment can become a matter of chance.

Addiction is widely recognized as a medical condition, but many people who need treatment never receive it. Others enter programs that may not rely on proven methods of care. In California, nearly 10,000 people died of drug overdoses in a recent 12-month period, according to state public health data cited in the original commentary.

Supporters of Treatment Atlas say the platform helps address a longstanding problem in the addiction treatment system: the lack of clear, verifiable information about what services programs provide and whether those services align with established standards. The website presents information in plain language, making it easier for parents and other loved ones to evaluate options under pressure.

Sheff said that kind of transparency was not available when his family was searching for help. He argues that tools like Treatment Atlas can help reduce the guesswork that has long faced families trying to find treatment, especially as stigma and confusion continue to delay care for many people with substance use disorders.

The concern now is that funding for the platform could be vulnerable as state officials look for places to cut spending. Advocates warn that smaller programs can disappear during budget negotiations not because they lack value, but because they do not always attract public attention.

Newsom has repeatedly emphasized treating addiction as a health issue and has called for a more evidence-based behavioral health system. Sheff and other supporters say maintaining funding for Treatment Atlas would be a practical way for the state to follow through on that commitment.

Nearly 1 million families used Atlas last year, according to the commentary. For parents weighing where to send a child in crisis, supporters say, access to reliable information can mean the difference between an informed decision and another uncertain attempt at recovery.

Original source: CalMatters

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When I set out to investigate the realities of street drug use in Los Angeles, I knew I wanted to bring readers inside the world of people battling homelessness and addiction.

A lot of reporting on our drug crisis leans on experts who, clearly, don’t have all the answers. I wanted to gain a better understanding of how people become addicted to drugs like fentanyl, the challenges they face on a daily basis, and their ideas on what could help.

My investigation would therefore have to be built on the voices of people experiencing homelessness and addiction. The problem is they are often not the most reliable sources. For starters, it was very challenging to remain in contact. Most of my sources did not have phones or would have their phones stolen so frequently it was impossible to keep track of their current number.

Sometimes, it was difficult to capture clear information from my sources. They were frequently under the influence of substances, such as fentanyl, which can make people extremely lethargic. 

Many people I met on the streets struggle with mental health challenges and would share information that to me — a journalist and not a mental health professional — seemed paranoid, delusional or fictional. 

In addition, people’s sense of time and details in personal stories would often change. One day a source would tell me he had been homeless for three years and first got addicted to opioids after a sports injury. The next time we met he would say that he had been homeless for five years and became addicted when his mother gave him leftover pain pills to treat a toothache. 

These two main challenges coupled together — lack of reliable contact and communication difficulties — also made it challenging to ensure that sources were clearly giving their informed consent to be interviewed and possibly photographed. 

Lastly, there was the emotional challenge of grappling with human suffering on a daily basis, knowing that I was essentially going in to extract information to serve my needs. The goal of the project was to bring more attention to the crisis, point out potential solutions and spur people to action. Still, at times I couldn’t help but feel unhelpful and even exploitative. 

In face of all this, I knew I either needed to find an ethically and journalistically sound way to work with these sources or pick a new project. 

Figuring out how to proceed took a lot of time, trial and error, and important conversations with my assigned fellowship mentor as well as my editorial team.

Here are the five strategies I used to build an investigation on sources battling homelessness and addiction:

1. Embed yourself in the field.

I decided to focus my investigation on one specific neighborhood, MacArthur Park, and spent as much time there as possible. This made it easier to get to know the people living in the area. By spending lots of time observing activities and asking people questions, I also came to understand the underground shoplifting economy fueling rampant fentanyl use, which became a key takeaway in my stories. 

Sticking to one location also made it easier to stay in touch with sources. If I wanted to ask a source a follow-up question, there was a good chance that if I showed up, waited and asked around, I would eventually locate them. 

2. Be an early riser.

Following the advice of my talented photographer, Sarah Reingewirtz, who has lots of experience working with people experiencing homelessness, we started going out to MacArthur Park around sunrise

This turned out to be a great time to make contact with sources, as most people were sober and better equipped to consent to be interviewed and provide clear information. By midday people were often consumed by withdrawals or making enough money to purchase fentanyl. By late afternoon people were often using or sleeping. 

Connecting with people early in the day also provided an opportunity to build trust with sources and stay with them throughout the day, which brings me to my next point.

3. Build trust with sources.

Pretty much every person experiencing homelessness quoted in the story was someone who I encountered more than once. People who are quoted heavily and whose faces are shown are sources with whom I built a rapport and met on many occasions.

This was essential for many reasons. First, multiple interactions and interviews helped build trust and make sure sources were clearly consenting to being interviewed and photographed. It also helped me get my facts straight around people’s life stories as these facts would sometimes change.  

It gave me a chance to watch their daily life and the struggles they went through, as well as how they changed over time. 

Lastly, making friends with sources helped with my own safety when working in a dangerous area. It made me feel like I had a level of approval to be working in the area and it encouraged other sources to open up to me.

4. Be a human and tell a human story.

There are strict journalistic boundaries for a reason. It would be unethical for me to use money, goods, or food to coax an unwilling subject to be interviewed.

At the same time, it was emotionally challenging to spend so much time surrounded by suffering and do nothing to help. Small acts of kindness were necessary for my mental peace of mind and ability to continue doing the work that needed to be done for my project. This meant occasionally giving out water or a snack to someone — not in return for anything, but because they needed it. 

It was also important to occasionally open up a little with my sources; sharing a little bit about my life made them feel more comfortable sharing about their own. Having casual conversations about things like music allowed me to weave personal, humanizing details into my articles that helped readers see my sources not just as someone addicted to drugs, but as a whole person. 

5. Balance with expert voices

I knew from the start of my project that I wanted the voices of people battling homelessness and addiction to be front and center. I worried about the piece being too expert heavy.

But over time I came to see the important role expert voices could provide. Instead of going to them first for answers and insights, I would make observations from the streets and then present them to experts.

For example, I might say, “Hey, a source is telling me that quitting fentanyl is way harder than quitting heroin.” An expert can then verify that it is indeed common and explain the science behind it

My project was still driven by people with lived experience, but now it had helpful context and explanations from experts.

The process also worked in reverse. For example, an expert might tell me that expanding access to methadone (a drug used to treat opioid addiction) is a great solution. Then a source may tell me that yes methadone is helpful, but it’s impossible to quit and the process of picking it up brings you into contact with other people who use drugs, which can tempt a relapse. 

This back-and-forth dialogue between experts and sources with lived experience helped me compose a nuance and well-rounded series. 

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The United States has an addiction problem, but we are far from number one in the world with drug problems. According to the most recent statistics, we are number eight. Iran is number one with approximately 14 million addicted to drugs. However the percentage of the American population on prescription pills is increasing day by day and has increased up to almost 50% in recent years.

Meth is the illegal drug of choice because it is the easiest to access. Fentanyl is a johnny-come-lately compared to heroin and cocaine. Fentanyl is not an illegal drug. It is widely prescribed as a pain killer for cancer and other types of illness. A prescription is required.

We manufacture opioids like candy because of demand. Most drug addictions have their beginnings in the family medicine cabinets. Doctors over-prescribe painkillers which makes them more available in the home.

You might expect the largest states to have the highest death rates. Not true. In numbers, they have the most deaths from overdoses but not by ranking per population. That goes to West Virginia with 81.4. The most recent number annually was 1,330. California’s ranking was 21, having a total of 8,908. West Virginia has become the poorest and least progressive state, while California is the wealthiest and most progressive. Why is this? The least progressive and poorest states have less to look forward to and are the most likely to sink into despair.

But let’s be realistic folks. Drug sales, legal or illegal, are part of the economy. Pharma keeps belting opiates out in the assembly line rapidly. Why, then, are drugs imported and do they all come from south of the border? To answer the first part of the question, it is simple economics. There would be no imports if there was not a demand. Supply and demand. As simple as that. We are an addicted nation.

While our politicians scream bloody murder about the importation of opiates from Mexico, there isn’t a port in the company that doesn’t have more access than the south simply because we do not have the means to stop drugs from coming in. So what are we doing to suppress the desire for drugs? Why do we talk but not show what drugs do to us? One video of some young boy or girl dying in the hospital or being found dead or dying will better teach the dangers of overdosing than all the talk in the world. Seeing is more likely believing. Drug addiction should be a required course from kindergarten through high school, just as history and science are taught.

So, the only way to stop the production of drugs and the ultimate overdose and death is to stop the demand. Duh! Just sayin’.

• DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

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Ending a tobacco addiction can be tough. While many smokers may think that e-cigarettes are a quit-smoking product, the American Lung Association is reminding people that e-cigarettes are a tobacco product and that switching to vaping is not the same as quitting.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not found any e-cigarette to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit. In one study, only 10.1 percent of the smokers who used e-cigarettes quit smoking after six months, while 26.6 percent of smokers who did not use e-cigarettes quit. Another study found 80 percent of the smokers given e-cigarettes did not quit, but switched, and instead became addicted to e-cigarettes, which produce a number of dangerous chemicals including acetaldehyde, acrolein, and formaldehyde, causing irreversible lung damage, lung diseases — and even death.

Advocates say that it’s critically important that the FDA crack down on these false claims, but in the meantime, those seeking to quit smoking should talk to their healthcare providers about developing a quit plan. To learn more about the American Lung Association’s Freedom From Smoking Plus program, visit lung.org/stop-smoking.

Deciding you want to quit smoking is the first step toward a healthier future. For the best possible chance of success in breaking your addiction for good, seek out methods with proven results.

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