Category: Addiction
State makes it easier to access opioid overdose drug
Anyone who wants to get opioid overdose drug naloxone can now obtain the drug at any pharmacy in the state without a prescription.
Addiction clinics marketing pricey, unproven treatments.
Clinics tout high success rates that appeal to vulnerable people suffering from addiction, even if there’s no solid evidence to support their claims or methods.
Opioid study shows which counties are at high-risk
Study identified 412 counties are at least twice as likely to be at high risk for opioid overdose deaths and to lack providers who can deliver medications to treat opioid use disorder.
Six-step plan reduced opioid use in rural clinic patients
A six-step plan that took a system approach cut use of high-dose opioids by more than 14 percent.
Drug and Alcohol Death rise in King County
Heroin and opioids continue to be the most common drugs associated with fatal overdoses, while deaths involving methamphetamine continued to rise sharply.
Meth In The Morning, Heroin At Night
Life inside the seesaw struggle of dual addiction.
Surgeons’ Opioid-Prescribing Habits Are Hard To Kick
As opioid addiction and overdoses escalated into an epidemic, many surgeons continued to hand out far more pills than needed for postoperative pain relief
The opioid crisis is not about pain – viewpoint
The opioid crisis is not, at its root, a problem of pain. It is a mental health crisis.
Opioid Treatment Programs Gear Up to Provide Suicide Care
People with an opioid addiction are at much higher risk for suicide than the rest of the population.
As Drug Crises Surge, Babies Enter Foster Care at Higher Rate
The trend has a big impact on states, whose budgets often already are overstretched responding to the drug crisis and other needs.
California Hospitals See Massive Surge In Homeless Patients
More than a third of those visits involved a diagnosis of mental illness.
A Netflix Model for Hepatitis C: One Price, Unlimited Meds
By Michael Ollove, Stateline Two states fighting an escalating hepatitis C crisis will soon pay a flat fee for unlimited drugs — Netflix style — to treat prisoners and low-income residents suffering from the deadly liver disease, with the goal…
Discharged, Dismissed: ERs Often Miss Chance To Set Overdose Survivors On ‘Better Path’
By Rachel Bluth, Kaiser Health News The last time heroin landed Marissa Angerer in a Midland, Texas, emergency room — naked and unconscious — was May 2016. But that wasn’t her first drug-related interaction with the health system. Doctors had…
Two Crises In One: As Drug Use Rises, So Does Syphilis
By Anna Gorman, California Healthline Public health officials grappling with record-high syphilis rates around the nation have pinpointed what appears to be a major risk factor: drug use. “Two major public health issues are colliding,” said Dr. Sarah Kidd, a…
Pay Attention to This Little-Noticed Opioid Lawsuit in Oklahoma
The trial will for the first time provide access to evidence aimed at showing that drug companies flooded markets with opioids, knowing that they were addictive.