57th Gem & Mineral Show comes to Solano Fairgrounds

VALLEJO — The 57th

Annual Gem & Mineral Show returns to Vallejo this weekend.

The event will occur from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday at the Solano County Fairgrounds, McCormack Hall, 900 Fairgrounds Drive.

More than 40 vendors will be selling jewelry, fossils, specimens and much more. They will be holding drawings, silent auctions, a kid’s corner, the popular wheel of fortune and more.

For more information, go to http://vjgems.com.

Rowland Freedom Center plans program on Civil War history

VACAVILLE — The Rowland Freedom Center will host a talk on the Civil War in the second speaker series event in “Faces of Freedom: Deed of Valor in Vacaville.”

Experience an encampment from the era (weather permitting) and witness the dedication of the Rowland Freedom Center’s Medal of Honor display to an ancestor of Civil War 1st Lt. Orson W. Bennett.

The event will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Rowland Freedom Center at the Nut Tree Airport, 300 County Airport Road, Suite C4.

For more information, visit rowlandfreedomcenter.org.

Government meetings dot week’s calendar

FAIRFIELD — Several government meetings will take place this week. They are all open to the public and include: n Fairfield City Council, 6 p.m. Tuesday, City Council chamber, 1000 Webster St. Info: www.fairfield.ca.gov/ government/city-council/ city-council-meetings. n Vacaville Planning Commission, 6 p.m. Tuesday, Vacaville City Hall, council chamber, 650 Merchant St. Info: www.ci.vacaville.ca.us. n Rio Vista City Council, 6 p.m. Tuesday, City Council chamber, City Hall, 1 Main St. Info: www.riovistacity.com/ citycouncil. n Solano Irrigation District, 6 p.m. Tuesday, Lake Berryessa Room, 810 Vaca Valley Parkway, Vacaville. Info: sidwater.org/ agendacenter. n Suisun City Council, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, City Council chamber, 701 Civic Center Blvd. Info: www. suisun.com/government/ city-council.

Solano Land Trust offers hike at Lynch Canyon

FAIRFIELD — The Solano Land Trust will host a nature hike from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Lynch Canyon Open Space, 3100 Lynch Road, in rural Fairfield.

This hike will take visitors westward along Middle Valley Trail leading to Prairie Ridge. Participants should expect a 5-mile hike at a moderate but even pace over uneven ground. Muddy spots will have cattle prints. There are steep climbs over several hills with the longest at Prairie Ridge – but land trust officials promise the views are worth it. Rain or extreme weather will cancel the hike. Advance registration is required. To register, go to solanolandtrust.org/events and search for the Lynch Canyon hike.

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

A new drug – a sedative normally used for animals – is increasingly making its way into the illicit drug trade in California, and local officials are concerned its arrival could worsen an already alarming overdose crisis.

Traces of xylazine, commonly known as “tranq,” have been found to have contributed to a small number of overdose deaths in San Francisco and Los Angeles, indicating the drug commonly used by veterinarians to tranquilize animals has already started to make its way into illegal street drugs here.

In San Francisco, four people who died between December and January were found to have low levels of xylazine in their systems, prompting the city’s Department of Public Health to issue a warning on Thursday about the drug, noting that it could be mixed with other drugs like fentanyl and heroin, unbeknownst to the user.

Dr. Gary Tsai, director of substance abuse prevention and control for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said traces of the drug were found in the system of one fatal overdose victim in the county in 2021.

Although no other cases have been detected locally, Tsai said the lack of awareness and testing for xylazine could mean its real impact has been underreported.

“Because it’s not that common, it’s not routinely tested for,” he said. “It’s possible that it’s more out there.” yet, but similar to fentanyl, it was more prevalent in the East Coast and it’s moving west,” Tsai said. “This is something that’s concerning.”

Still, Tsai points out that tranq is increasingly showing up across the country, usually mixed with opioids to increase their effects.

In an October 2022 report, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration warned that xylazine was increasingly being detected in illicit drugs.

Although the drug is sometimes used on its own, the DEA reported it is most often found combined with other substances, including fentanyl, cocaine and heroin.

Xylazine is primarily used in veterinary practice as an animal muscle relaxant; it has not been approved for human use.

“It may also attract customers looking for a longer high since xylazine is described as having many of the same effects for users as opioids, but with a longer-lasting effect than fentanyl alone,” according to the DEA report.

The drug is difficult to detect because, as a sedative, it creates the same kind of effects as the opioids that it’s often mixed with, such as sleepiness, reduced breathing and lower blood pressure, Tsai said.

But people who inject xylazine have been found to also experience tissue damage such as ulcers or sores, and in some cases the damage can result in amputation.

And unlike opioids, xylazine is not affected by naloxone, the medicine used to reverse opioid overdoses, Tsai said.

“The main concern is we’re already amid the worst overdose crisis in history, nationally and locally,” he said. “This would increase deaths from overdoses.”

The risk is so high that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent health care officials a notice in November warning that the presence of Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Heeva Ghane has been a surgical nurse with Planned Parenthood for a year, but since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in June, she has taken on a new role: helping people from other states get an abortion in California.

She is a “patient navigator.”

It is through the eyes of the 32-year-old Ghane that we can see an early snapshot of the chaos and emotional heartbreak the Supreme Court triggered by unleashing a patchwork of conflicting abortion laws across the country.

Ghane’s official title is director of case management at Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino counties. Her new patient navigator responsibilities have become a common – and necessary – job at clinics across the state. There are now two dozen staffers doing some form of patient navigation across California’s seven Planned Parenthood affiliates.

The need is there. Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade last June, the procedure is now virtually banned in 14 states. Four other states won’t allow it after anywhere from six to 18 weeks of pregnancy and three more states have seen their bans blocked by the courts, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

But the need to end unwanted pregnancies never ended. It has just forced pregnant people to go to extraordinary and emotionally exhaustive lengths to obtain a common,safe medical procedure that typically lasts less than 10 minutes.

Many are coming to California, which – led by Gov. Gavin Newsom –has cast itself as a national haven for abortion. A place where patients and doctors don’t have to look over their shoulder for someone who wants to prosecute them for terminating an unwanted pregnancy.

But someone has to help pregnant people get to that haven. That requires paying for transportation, lodging, food and other related costs involved in traveling across the country, typically on short notice. It usually costs about $1,000 to help a patient traveling from Texas, which is where many of the people Ghane has helped are from – although people are traveling from as far away as South Carolina and Florida, and several other states, too.

The role of the navigator is part travel agent, part hand-holder, and in the case of Ghane, includes being a skilled clinician in the room during the procedure.

Juggling those roles can be a challenge. Many of the people Ghane helps are scared, haven’t traveled far from home or even taken an Uber ride before. Many are poor and live in rural areas and small towns. Many are afraid to even get an ultrasound in their home states.

“They’re scared to go get an ultrasound because if somehow in their medical history it shows up that they had an ultrasound and they’re pregnant and now they’re not pregnant and they don’t have a child, they get scared,” Ghane said. “They want to know: ‘Will someone track them?’ “

Some fear just searching for information about abortion.

“One patient wanted to know how she can clear her internet browser because she was worried that by Googling ‘abortion in California,’ like it would flag her IP address,” Ghane said. The staff showed her how to scrub her search history.

Many of the people who Ghane has helped have stories similar to the first patient she assisted.

The woman was in her early 20s and already had an 18-month-old child. Her boyfriend, the father, was now out of the picture and wanted nothing to do with her.

“And she had never been on a plane before. She had never traveled anywhere outside of Texas before,” Ghane said. “So not only did she have the anxiety of being able to have this service, she had the anxiety of having to travel across state lines to go to a state she had never been to before. It’s just so heartbreaking.”

Then there was the woman from Utah who didn’t feel comfortable telling her family, friends or the father that she was pregnant. Complicating her journey: She also had never flown before, Ghane said.

“She’s scared of flying. So she said she was going to drive. But her only companion and her emotional support was her dog,” Ghane said. “So she asked, ‘Is the hotel by any chance dog- friendly?’ “ Navigators helped the woman secure the hotel. They also provided her with gas money for her eighthour drive to Planned Parenthood’s San Bernardino clinic. The woman arrived at the clinic early in the morning, after having made the trek overnight. She got her procedure, stayed overnight in a hotel with her dog, then drove back the next day. She had to, Ghane said. She couldn’t afford to miss a shift of her waitressing job.

The woman’s challenges getting to California echoed so many of the 300 out-of-state patients who have visited the Orange and San Bernardino clinics since Roe fell. ( Planned Parenthood said it has not compiled the number of out-of-state patients who have traveled to California.) Even though her clinic can often offer services as soon as the next day, Ghane said sometimes patients tell her, “I can’t make an appointment for another two weeks, because I need to coordinate (my) life.”

“The stories are so similar,” Ghane said, “Many have never traveled. They don’t have support. They can’t tell anyone. They’re scared. They’re scared to even talk to us.”

U.S. law enforcement officials first noticed tranq’s use as a street drug in Puerto Rico, but then found it began to make its way to states in the Northeast.

“It’s not that common

Courtenay Harris Bond/Kaiser Health News/TNS

Stephanie Klipp, a wound care nurse, treats people’s xylazine ulcers in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, where maintaining hygiene is an issue for those living on the streets. Traces of xylazine, commonly known as “tranq,” have been found to have contributed to a small number of overdose deaths in San Francisco and Los Angeles, indicating the drug commonly used to tranquilize animals has already started to make its way into street drugs here.