drug abuse

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The Barton Foundation has awarded a record $100,000 in its annual Community Health Grant funding. This is in addition to more than $170,000 in grants given to local families and individuals from its COVID-19 Response Fund.

The 13 Lake Tahoe-based organizations that were awarded share Barton Health’s commitment to addressing the most urgent health needs in the area: mental and behavioral health, substance use, and access to care.

The organizations selected for a Community Health Grant serve the area’s most vulnerable populations and those in need:

Can one event make a difference? We believe it does, one life at a time.

What rattles our communities across our nation to their core? Drug abuse. Approximately 100 people each day die from drug overdoses. Whole industries of products and programs are being developed to combat this problem. Every day more grandparents are now “parenting” their grandchildren so they can be raised in a stable and healthy environment. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the abuse of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs is costing our Nation over $740 billion annually in costs related to crime, lost work productivity and health care.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CALIF. - Palliative Care is a new medical specialty focusing more broadly on improving life and providing comfort to people of all ages with serious, chronic and life-threatening illnesses.

Learn more about it during the next Barton Health lecture on February 1 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Lake Tahoe Community College Board Room located at One College Drive in South Lake Tahoe.

Due to highly addictive prescription drugs kept in the medicine cabinets or nightstands of many households, the South Lake Tahoe Drug Free Coalition (DFC) is giving away lock bags so people can keep their prescriptions safe from unauthorized use.

Oxycontin, Demerol, Valium, Ritalin, Adderall, Xanax, Percocet, and Codeine, are also some of the most prescribed and readily-available drugs. They are so readily available that 1 in every 4 teens in America say they have used or misused a prescription drug.

For the past several months there has been no official SLEDNET servicing the South Shore, and today it was announced that the drug task force that has been serving the community since 1988 has dissolved.

The El Dorado County Sheriff's Office and South Lake Tahoe Police Department will be taking back unwanted prescription drugs on Saturday, September 26 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Lira's Market in Meyers.

Take expired or unused drugs as the disposal site. No sharps will be accepted.

Prescription drug abuse continues to be a problem in the community, and removing unwanted containers of drugs from medicine cabinets will take them out of the hands of abusers.

It's a sunny afternoon at Kelly's Collective, a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, and Nikki Esquibel is getting stoned. But you wouldn't know it.

The 19-year-old, who has a medical prescription for marijuana, is "smoking" pot with a handheld vaporizer, or a vape pen. It's sleek, black, and virtually indistinguishable from a high-end e-cigarette.

That's the point, says Esquibel. "I use it mostly around my neighborhood. It's easy to hide." The vapor coming from the device doesn't even have much of an odor.

The South Lake Tahoe Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will host a drug disposal day on October 26th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Safeway. They are giving the public its seventh opportunity in three years to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs. Bring your medications for disposal to Safeway at 1020 Johnson Blvd, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150. The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.

The City of South Lake Tahoe has updated it’s Curfew Ordinance (18-1-3.7). Because of the recent changes and the desire by the South Lake Tahoe Police Department to enforce the ordinance from 1/1/2013 forward, we would like to update the community on the recent passage of the “Day Time Curfew.”