Category: Opioids
New momentum for addiction treatment behind bars
Fewer than 1 percent of the more than 5,000 U.S. prisons and jails, housing more than 2 million inmates, allow access to the FDA-approved medication for drug addiction, even though medical societies, addiction experts and correctional health organizations support their use.
Staying Alive: How to fight an opioid addiction
If you’re ready to address your own addiction, or that of a loved one, know that you may not succeed — at first. You probably won’t be able to do it without outside help or medications. And you’ll probably have to take medications for years — or the rest of your life.
How many opioid overdoses are suicides?
At least 40 percent of active drug users wrestle with depression, anxiety or another mental health issue that increases the risk of suicide.
Federal ban on methadone vans seen as barrier to treatment
Mobile methadone vans have served people with opioid addiction in rural towns and underserved inner-city neighborhoods for nearly three decades. But the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which regulates dispensing of the FDA-approved addiction medicine, has refused to license any new methadone vans since 2007 over concerns about potential diversion of the medication.
Graphic: Opioid Painkiller Is Top Prescription In 11 States
Americans fill about 4.5 billion prescriptions each year, at a cost of more than $323 billion. But what are we actually buying? In 11 states, the top prescriptions are opioid pain pills that are mixtures of acetaminophen and hydrocodone.
A battered doctor, a slain patient and a family’s quest for answers
David Cole Lang’s widow, Monique, says she still has no clue as to why the 33-year-old combat veteran and father who struggled with opioid addiction ended up fatally shot by a doctor whom — as far as Monique knew — he hadn’t seen in over a year.
How your brain is wired to just say ‘yes’ to opioids
When opioids enter the brain, they bind to receptors known as μ (mu) opioid receptors on brain cells, or neurons. These receptors stimulate the “reward center” of the brain. Over time, those receptors become less sensitive, and more of the drug is needed to stimulate the reward center.
Ten ERs in Colorado tried to curtail opioids and did better than expected
The goal was for the group of hospitals to reduce opioids by 15 percent. Instead, the hospitals did much better: opioid prescriptions went down 36 percent on average.
Overdose deaths fall in 14 states
New provisional data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that drug overdose deaths declined in 14 states — including Washington state — during the 12-month period that ended July 2017, a potentially hopeful sign that policies aimed at curbing the death toll may be working.
Death in the family: An uncle’s overdose spurs Medicaid official to change course
His uncle’s death shook Ostrovsky, a pediatrician appointed to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in 2016. He had championed better drug treatment programs for the 74 million people on Medicaid — an increasingly uphill battle after Republicans signaled they would trim the program under President Donald Trump.
