From NIH NIH study explains why opioid therapy may not always work well for chronic pain Researchers have shown that pain-induced changes in the rat brain’s opioid receptor system may explain the limited effectiveness of opioid therapy in chronic pain and may play a role in the depression that often accompanies it. These findings clearly […]
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First FDA-Approved Medication for Opioid Withdrawal
From NIDA. NIDA-Supported Science Leads to First FDA-Approved Medication for Opioid Withdrawal In 2016, 115 Americans died every day from an overdose involving prescription or illicit opioids. Addiction to any drug has multiple components—altered functioning of the reward system, learned associations with drug cues that promote preoccupation and craving, and changes to prefrontal circuits necessary for proper exertion […]
Walmart to Restrict Opioids to 7-day Supply for Some
From CBS News. By Kate Gibson Walmart and Sam’s Club’s pharmacies will limit some customers to a seven-day supply of opioids, as the retail giant moves to help stem the epidemic that kills more than 100 Americans a day. The restrictions on initial opioid prescriptions for acute pain will start within the next 60 days, […]
Teen Develops ‘Wet Lung’ After Vaping for Just 3 Weeks
From CNN. Join our webinar on Vaping and Marijuana, Thursday, May 31st at 12noon EDT. By Susan Scutti, CNN An 18-year-old woman working as a hostess in a rural Pennsylvania restaurant decided to try e-cigarettes, perhaps another of the innumerable bistro workers hoping to calm frayed nerves with a smoke — or in this case, […]
New Study Suggests Overdose Deaths Now Caused Mainly By Synthetic Opioids
From JAMA. 2018;319(17):1819-1821. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.2844 Changes in Synthetic Opioid Involvement in Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2010-2016 Drug overdose deaths are at unprecedented levels in the United States.1 Prescription opioids have been the most common drug involved in overdose deaths, but heroin and synthetic opioids (primarily illicit fentanyl) are increasingly implicated in overdoses.2 In addition, synthetic opioids […]
Study upends conventional view of opioid mechanism of action
From NIDA. NIH-funded scientists find new molecular target for developing safer pain medications. A new discovery shows that opioids used to treat pain, such as morphine and oxycodone, produce their effects by binding to receptors inside neurons, contrary to conventional wisdom that they acted only on the same surface receptors as endogenous opioids, which are […]
All of Us study to gather data from a million Americans
From NIDA. Million-Participant NIH Study Could Yield Important Insights into Addiction and Pain We are on the verge of a new era in medicine, one that truly treats the patient as an individual and as a participant in their own care. New data-gathering and analytic capabilities are enabling the kinds of massive, long-term studies needed […]
Fatal Car Crashes Happen More Often Than Usual on 4/20, Study Finds
From Time by Alexandra Sifferlin April 20 is known as a popular “4/20” holiday for marijuana enthusiasts, but researchers argue that the festivities may have serious consequences, including an increased risk of fatal traffic crashes. In a research letter published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, Canadian researchers looked at 25 years of data on fatal crashes […]
Addiction experts have new tools, tough challenges
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. by Rich Lord SAN DIEGO — After years of surging overdoses, some of the officials and medical practitioners most deeply involved in the fight against opioids have hope that they finally have the tools, the funding and the public support needed to get the epidemic under control. “I have some cautious […]
Virginia community partners team up to fight opioid crisis
From The Daily Progress. by Rebecca Kendall Vital Signs: Community partners teaming up on opioid crisis Last month, the federal government unveiled its plan to address the opioid epidemic. While our region (Charlottesville and Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson counties) is not as severely impacted as other areas, such as Southwest Virginia, our region’s […]