Hepatitis A Vaccination Required for Herd Immunity in People Experiencing Homelessness or Who Use Drugs
UC San Diego Health
Even as the opioid epidemic dominated national attention over the past decade, the rate of overdose deaths involving cocaine, methamphetamine and other stimulants tripled, a new study in veterans suggests.
The findings suggest the new no-prosecution policies did not result in increased public complaints about drug use or sex work in Baltimore, and that those who had charges dropped did not go on to commit serious crimes.
The results of several new studies focusing on sex differences in pain and addiction indicate females could be more susceptible to drug addiction and addiction-like behaviors than males.
The extract of the plant Corydalis yanhusuo prevents morphine tolerance and dependence while also reversing opiate addiction, according to a recent study led by the University of California, Irvine. The findings were published in the October issue of the journal Pharmaceuticals.
Smokers, those with bipolar disorder, depression, pulmonary hypertension at higher risk for persistent opioid use, study finds.
Recent studies by the University of Kentucky's HEALing Communities Study (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) researchers show a notable rise in opioid overdose death rates among non-Hispanic Black individuals.
Scientists have found that the psychedelic drug psilocybin, in development as an anti-depressive treatment, changes the emotional state of people listening to music.
College students who misuse stimulant drugs or nootropics like Adderall or Ritalin are also likely to drink heavily and use other drugs, according to new research from the University of Georgia.
Researchers describe how withdrawal from nicotine, methamphetamine and cocaine alters the functional architecture and patterns in the brains of mice, compared to control animals, a key to developing addiction treatments.
While many people focus on the role of drugs in overdose deaths, a recent study shows that deaths where drugs were a contributing cause are also on the rise.
A rise in heroin and fentanyl in New Jersey between 2014-2019 led to the tripling of medically treated opioid overdoses despite the state’s strict limiting of prescription opioids for pain and substantial state initiatives to expand access to treatment for opioid use disorder, according to a Rutgers-led study.
According to three studies presented at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), using cannabis before total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA) can lead to increased complications, longer hospital stays, higher rates of adverse events, increased readmissions, and higher costs.
A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has come up with a new solution to boost the surveillance of designer drug abuse.
Researchers identified 579 locations in the human genome associated with a predisposition to self-regulation-related behaviors, such as addiction. With data from 1.5 million people of European descent, the effort is one of the largest genome-wide association studies to date.
CHICAGO - Drug overdose deaths broke records during 2020, and while the pandemic no doubt contributed, surgery plays an often-overlooked role in America’s ongoing opioid epidemic because many patients continue to use their prescribed opioids months after their procedures. Pain medicine specialists are leading the way in addressing the opioid epidemic by developing strategies to reduce opioid misuse related to surgery, from helping to ease pain before the procedure to ensuring at-risk patients have access to naloxone to prevent an accidental overdose, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).
Two South Dakota State University researchers will develop methods to create a chemical profile that will help determine if a medication is authentic or not—and possibly even trace where the ingredients in illicit drugs come from—as part of the South Dakota Center for Understanding and Disrupting the Illicit Economy.
Rutgers School of Public Health assistant professor, Stephanie Shiau, has received a Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study the implications of opioid prescription use among older adults living with HIV.
Among adolescents ages 10 to 14 in the U.S, the overall rate of drug use remained relatively stable in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one change was a decreased use of alcohol, but an increased use of nicotine and misuse of prescription drugs.
Diclofenac and other NSAIDs may limit the passage of narcolepsy medication and illicit party drug GHB to the brain, decreasing the potential for fatal overdose, University at Buffalo researchers find.
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically affected people’s lives, especially early on. Today, scientists report that wastewater analysis identified drugs that people turned to for relief and those that plummeted in use, between March and June 2020. They will present their results at ACS Fall 2021.
Expert Q&A: Do breakthrough cases mean we will soon need COVID boosters? The extremely contagious Delta variant continues to spread, prompting mask mandates, proof of vaccination, and other measures. Media invited to ask the experts about these and related topics.
How did Australia's first COVID lockdown in 2020 affect drug use? Methamphetamine use dropped, cannabis use spiked, and several states cut back on their drinking, according to wastewater monitoring covering approximately half the population.
Five years ago, CDC released an evidence-based guideline to help doctors treat their patients’ pain while balancing the risks and benefits of prescription opioid medications. A new study suggests it may have started to have an effect in the first two years after its launch.
A new study shows that taking both an opioid and a benzodiazepine drug is especially risky if multiple doctors prescribe the two different types of drugs to the same patient rather than the same doctor.
With overdose rates involving cocaine soaring nearly 27% in 2020, researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) hope that a clinical trial combining a medication approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help prevent relapse in cocaine use disorder patients.
Emergency department visit rates because of an opioid overdose increased by 28.5% across the U.S. in 2020, compared to 2018 and 2019, recent Mayo Clinic research finds. Emergency visits overall decreased by 14% last year, while visits because of an opioid overdose increased by 10.5%. The result: Opioid overdoses were responsible for 0.32 out of 100 visits, or 1 in every 313 visits, which is up from 0.25, or 1 in every 400 visits, the previous two years.
As opioid overdose deaths rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, people seeking treatment for opioid addiction had to wait nearly twice as long to begin methadone treatment in the United States than in Canada, a new Yale study has shown.
Members of a coalition of 50+ leading public health groups who issued a set of five guiding principles for spending opioid settlement funds in January are reacting to the announcement of the $26 billion settlement deal between a group of state attorneys general and Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, McKesson, and Johnson & Johnson.
Recognizing the urgent need for comprehensive approaches to opioid use disorder that address the needs of the entire family, the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) is today issuing a new Request for Proposals for projects that will engage and empower vulnerable families and communities to prevent opioid use disorder and overdose.
The July 30 virtual conference is part of a three-year grant to train clinicians to prescribe medications to treat addiction.
Combined perceptions of the risk and availability of cannabis influence the risk of cannabis use more than perceived risk and perceived availability alone, according to a new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Rutgers scientists have used a diagnostic technique for the first time in the opioid addiction field that they believe has the potential to determine which opioid-addicted patients are more likely to relapse.
Not only is cannabis the most commonly used illicit – in a number of states – drug among people who drink alcohol, cannabis is also by far the most commonly used illicit drug in the U.S. overall. New research findings tease out the nuanced relationship between alcohol and cannabis through a survey of regular cannabis users who also report drinking alcohol, as well as heavy drinkers in treatment who also use cannabis. These findings will be shared at the 44th annual scientific meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA), which due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be held virtually this year from the 19th - 23rd of June 2021.
Researchers at UC San Diego, San Diego State University, and international collaborators have designed and validated a prediction model to signal counties at risk of future overdose death outbreaks.
People who have a high sensation-seeking personality trait may be more likely to develop an addiction to cocaine, according to a Rutgers study.
Loyola Medicine’s Opioid Task Force, in partnership with the Cook County Sheriff's Department, is organizing a Medication Take Back Day for community members, patients and colleagues to safely dispose of their old medications on Friday, June 11 from 10 am – 2 pm in the Loyola Outpatient Center (2160 S. First Ave., Maywood).
The $2.3 million, four-year Avenir Award will support his innovative research project, “Tele-Harm Reduction for Rapid Initiation of Antiretrovirals in People Who Inject Drugs: A Randomized Controlled Trial.”
Now that a key policy regarding prescription of a medication for opioid use disorder has been changed, experts reflect on the remaining challenges standing in the way of more people getting effective medication-assisted treatment, and discuss efforts to overcome those barriers.
The latest findings show that with clever science, a single fingerprint left at a crime scene could be used to determine whether someone has touched or ingested class A drugs.
Fields of opium poppies once bloomed where the Zurich Opera House underground garage now stands.
Amid the rising toll of opioid overdoses and deaths in the U.S., several states are considering laws enabling civil commitment for involuntary treatment of patients with substance use disorders (SUDs). Most addiction medicine physicians support civil commitment for SUD treatment – but others strongly oppose this approach, reports a survey study in Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
Frequent cannabis vaping, defined as vaping at least 10 times a month, more than doubled among high school seniors in the United States between 2018 and 2019, according to new research from NYU Grossman School of Medicine published online May 4 in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Having grown up poor in a rural village in Zimbabwe, Wilson Majee saw firsthand as a child the lack of educational opportunities that were easily accessible and how that impacted the youth in his village.
Babies born to mothers diagnosed with cannabis use disorder are more likely to experience negative health outcomes, such as preterm birth and low birth weight, than babies born to mothers without a cannabis use disorder diagnosis, report UC San Diego researchers.
June 2021 AJPH Issue highlights COVID-19 concerns in relation to fatal drug overdoses, drops in youth e-cigarette use, importance of public health measures, and strategies to protect correctional staff.
Smoking cannabis significantly impairs vision but many users are unaware of it