Since late 2014, when the California Department of Corrections launched a statewide program to end the flourishing market for illegal drugs in its penitentiaries, drug use has actually increased. The $8 million plan, which included the purchase of drug-detecting scanners and drug-sniffing dogs, was put […]
For the estimated 2.2 million Americans suffering an addiction to prescription painkillers or heroin, federal regulations have it made it difficult to get legal access to a medication that can save their lives. Suboxone eases the physically painful squeeze of opiate addiction when administered properly […]
In rural Southeastern Indiana, the city of Austin is home to a small community of 4,200 citizens. The quaint township has had an operating post office since 1854. Now, however, the city is home to one of the worst outbreaks of HIV in U.S. history. […]
Resistance to change is a normal human impulse. Even in the worst of circumstances, the familiar is often more comfortable than trying to rework a bad situation. When meaningful change does occur, as it has in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a small fishing town just shy of […]
Experts in the field of addiction have, for years, known that Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) is the most effective method of treating individuals addicted to heroin and opioid painkillers. As the epidemic of opioid abuse continues to ravage cities across the country, lawmakers and the […]
As the patent on MS Contin, a morphine pill for cancer patients, moved toward expiration in the late 1980s, its maker, Purdue Pharma, began development on OxyContin. Fast forward a few years and $35 billion later and the opioid medication topped the charts as the […]
Probuphine Implants in the upper arm that release buprenorphine, a drug that counteracts opioid withdrawals and cravings, have proven effective in treating addiction to heroin and prescription painkillers. Probuphine is steadily making its way through clinical trials, as well as the approval process of the […]
Amid the always-raucous debate about illegal drug policy in the United States, most everyone agrees on at least one thing: our nation’s war on drugs, which began in the 1960s, is a failure. Overdose deaths are at all time highs. Millions of non-violent drug offenders […]
Tragedies due to the widespread abuse of heroin and opioid painkillers have sadly become commonplace in the United States. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey published in April reports that one in five Americans say they have a family member who has been addicted to prescription […]
In America, you know something has gone mainstream when it becomes the subject of a sketch on the iconic late night show Saturday Night Live (SNL). For decades, SNL has skewered popular American institutions, politicians and societal issues, which have alternately alienated some people and […]
