Opinion: Inflexible methadone regulations impede America’s efforts to reduce overdose deaths
Imagine if people who needed insulin to control their diabetes had to trek across town…
Category: addiction
Opinion: Justice for Sackler family members, not immunity
Your neighbor’s kid is still sitting in jail for selling heroin — to people who…
States: Sackler family members abusing bankruptcy process
NEW YORK — A federal judge should reject a sweeping settlement to thousands of lawsuits…
Her husband died by suicide. She sued his pain doctors — a rare challenge over an opioid dose reduction
For six years, Brent Slone had relied on opioid medication to tame his agonizing pain…
Opinion: A new index measures the extent and depth of addiction stigma
“I finally build up the courage to tell the doctor I need help. Staring at…
Opinion: Overdose prevention sites can save lives and promote recovery. We must be willing to try them
The latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are simply staggering:…
Purdue bankruptcy settlement leaves families angry, conflicted
Among the families who lost children and other loved ones in the nation’s opioid crisis,…
Opinion: FDA’s kratom ban would harm the public and damage the agency’s credibility
Trust in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declined after its approval of the…
Opinion: Medically, legally, and morally, emergency departments cannot ignore addiction care
“My son Michael asked for help with his addiction to heroin,” a mother wrote in…
Opinion: Harm-reduction programs acknowledge the difference between ‘do no harm’ and ‘protect from harm’
Brian, a patient at my clinic in Scott County, Ind., is one of many who…
Opinion: With the tobacco settlement, the U.S. missed its moment to fortify public health. We can’t make that mistake with the opioid settlement
States, counties, cities, and tribes have brought thousands of lawsuits seeking to hold players in…
Opinion: Punishing drug use heightens the stigma of addiction
Our understanding of substance use disorders as chronic but treatable health conditions has come a…
States could get billions from opioid lawsuits. They have to decide how to spend it
The endgame of the sprawling mass of opioid lawsuits is starting to come into focus:…
Opinion: Listen: A journalist on what the Vietnam War taught us about addiction
In this week’s episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” science journalist and author Lauren Aguirre…
Opinion: Lessons learned — and lost — from a Vietnam-era study of addiction
Opioids like heroin, morphine, OxyContin, and fentanyl occupy a spot in the public imagination as…
U.S. overdose deaths hit record 93,000 in 2020 during pandemic
NEW YORK — Overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year in the midst…
Biden to nominate West Virginia’s Rahul Gupta as drug czar
WASHINGTON — President Biden will nominate Rahul Gupta, a March of Dimes executive and former…
Opinion: Closing an Indiana county’s syringe services program would be a public health disaster
A 6-year-old program that has reduced overdose deaths while simultaneously preventing new cases of HIV…
Years ago, a syringe exchange helped end a devastating HIV outbreak. Now it might be forced to close
The Indiana county at the center of a devastating HIV crisis in 2015 may soon…
Opinion: Unlocking federal funding for fentanyl test strips will save lives
It has been said that the opposite of addiction is connection. Covid-19, however, has frayed…
Opinion: People recover from addiction. They also go on to do good things
The news about addiction — rising rates of addiction, record numbers of overdose deaths, and…
Do public health officials need to be political activists? A fight over an HIV crisis renews the question
Most local health officials don’t accept their jobs expecting to be roped into political activism….
Opinion: Needed: an Operation Warp Speed for the opioid epidemic
Despite early challenges in scaling diagnostic testing for Covid-19 and a halting start to the…
Biden administration will allow nearly all providers to prescribe buprenorphine
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday announced it would move forward with a dramatic…
A new book traces the roots of the opioid crisis through the secretive Sackler family
The family behind the OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma was already under intense legal and public…
Opinion: Listen: Two addiction specialists debunk the myth of ‘excited delirium’ used in police encounters
In the tenth episode of “The First Opinion Podcast,” I talk with two physicians who…
Opinion: Money from opioid lawsuits is urgently needed now
Opioid companies are being forced to pay for their grave mistakes and misdeeds in helping…
Opinion: Addiction and behavioral health care workers should have access to Covid-19 testing and vaccines
At the beginning of the pandemic, the U.S. government and private organizations rushed to support…
As the pandemic ushered in isolation and financial hardship, overdose deaths reached new heights
Among the unrelenting death statistics flowing from the CDC last month, one grim non-Covid-19 statistic…
Trump administration will let nearly all doctors prescribe addiction medicine buprenorphine
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced a major shift in addiction medicine policy Thursday, giving…
Combination of two drugs can help treat methamphetamine addiction for some, new clinical trial data shows
As rates of methamphetamine overdose soar in the United States, one of the biggest challenges…
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Opinion: Peer recovery programs are an integral part of addiction treatment, recovery
I still remember the charge nurse looking at me when I walked into the hospital…
Opinion: As a physician and a patient, I’ve seen the damage caused by the stigma of addiction. It must end
Although the disease of addiction is now obscured by the dark cloud of the Covid-19…
Pregnancy poses challenges for people in recovery from substance use disorder. Covid-19 is taxing their support system
GREENFIELD, Mass. — Doula Carrie Diehl lives in a house set between a gentle stream…
STAT Plus: Nearly a year since opening its doors, here’s how Verily’s addiction medicine campus is taking shape
Verily drew widespread praise last year when it announced an “ambitious endeavor” to combat the…
Opioid overdoses have skyrocketed amid the coronavirus, but states are nevertheless slashing addiction treatment program budgets
WASHINGTON — Drug overdoses have skyrocketed and demand for addiction treatment medicine has soared as…
STAT Plus: A pill to fight alcoholism causes an uproar in France over a regulator’s view of a clinical trial
Two years ago, French regulators made a surprising decision, overruling one of their own expert…
Opinion: Real-time data are essential for Covid-19. They’re just as important for the opioid overdose crisis
As the Covid-19 epidemic sweeps across the country leaving death and confusion in its wake,…
Covid-19 has streamlined addiction medicine. Will the changes stick?
Nicole Godinez’s monthly visit to an addiction clinic typically takes several hours: To start, there’s…
STAT Plus: Despite evidence, many primary care doctors don’t want to prescribe medications for addiction
There are widely recommended medicines for treating opioid addiction, but one-third of primary care physicians…
Methadone clinic lines and packed waiting rooms leave clients vulnerable to the coronavirus
One photo shows a long line of people standing close together while waiting for methadone…
Opinion: A radical approach to preventing Covid-19 infection in the homeless
There is only a small window of time in which we can prevent widespread transmission…
Opinion: Covid-19 will worsen the opioid overdose crisis if we don’t prepare now
In cities across the country, morning is peak time at almost any opioid treatment program….
Opinion: What an 1890s opioid epidemic can teach us about ending addiction today
In the ’90s, chronic pain was rampant in America. Opioids, which had previously been taboo,…
STAT Plus: Prosecutors identified ‘Pharma Co. X’ as central to alleged opioid kickback scheme. Was it Purdue?
Federal prosecutors this week announced a $145 million settlement with an electronic health records company…
Faced with prescriber fears of OxyContin misuse, Purdue sales reps misleadingly played up drug’s safety, documents show
PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A year and a half after the opioid painkiller OxyContin went on…
STAT Plus: Pear Therapeutics licenses voice biomarkers for dementia and psychiatric disorders
Pear Therapeutics has struck a deal to license voice biomarkers to try to improve treatment…
This mental health advocate wants to make addiction and behavioral health a 2020 election issue
WASHINGTON — A top mental health and addiction treatment advocate here wants behavioral health on…
The history of OxyContin, told through unsealed Purdue documents
PIKEVILLE, Ky. — STAT’s multiyear legal battle to unseal secret Purdue Pharma files in a…
Purdue’s Richard Sackler proposed plan to play down OxyContin risks, and wanted drug maker feared ‘like a tiger,’ files show
PIKEVILLE, Ky. — In the early days of OxyContin, Dr. Richard Sackler, a member of…