NEED HELP? If you or someone you know is in a crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. In September 2020, Congress passed bipartisan ... [Continue Reading]
Health Industry Wields Power in California’s High-Stakes Battle to Lower Health Care Costs
SACRAMENTO — Gavin Newsom put California’s health care industry on notice when he was a candidate for governor, vowing in 2018 to go after the insurance companies, doctors and hospitals that leave many Californians struggling with enormous ... [Continue Reading]
New Law Bans Harassment at Vaccination Sites, but Free Speech Concerns Persist
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — It’s now illegal in California to harass people on their way into a vaccination clinic, under a law signed Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But First Amendment experts continue to raise legal questions about ... [Continue Reading]
Needle Exchanges Are Targeted by Eco-Rooted Lawsuits. A New California Law Will Stop That.
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — For more than 30 years, public health officials and nonprofits in California have provided clean hypodermic needles to people who use them to inject drugs. For nearly that entire time, opponents have accused ... [Continue Reading]
Youthful Advisers Help Shape a Mental Health Program for Their Peers
Phebe Cox grew up in what might seem an unlikely mental health danger zone for a kid: tony Palo Alto, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. But behind its façade of family success and wealth, she said, is an environment of crushing ... [Continue Reading]
Listen: California Banks on a Bold Treatment: Pay Drug Users to Stop Using
When Billy Lemon was trying to kick his methamphetamine addiction, he went to a drug treatment program at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation three times a week and peed in a cup. If it tested negative for meth, he got paid about $7. As the pandemic ... [Continue Reading]
Santa Cruz Health Officials Honored for Persevering in Covid Battle Against Tide of ‘Denialism’
Two California public health officials who pressed forward with aggressive measures to contain covid-19 even while enduring death threats and harassment will be honored with the 2021 PEN/Benenson Courage Award from PEN America, the group announced ... [Continue Reading]
California Moves on Climate Change, but Rejects Aggressive Cuts to Greenhouse Emissions
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As California trudges into another autumn marred by toxic wildfire smoke and drought-parched reservoirs, state lawmakers have cast climate change as a growing public health threat for the state’s 40 million residents. ... [Continue Reading]