Fentanyl News and Research

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Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opiate analgesic similar to but more potent than morphine. It is typically used to treat patients with severe pain, or to manage pain after surgery. It is also sometimes used to treat people with chronic pain who are physically tolerant to opiates. It is a schedule II prescription drug.

California’s new attack on opioid addiction hits old roadblocks

Jennifer Stilwell, a 30-year-old mother of two young children, kicked heroin cold turkey five years ago, but she got hooked again last fall.

1 Apr 2020

UC researchers identify populations most at risk of overdosing on opiates

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati are helping to identify those most at risk in Ohio of overdosing on opiates.

19 Mar 2020

New step towards the development of non-addictive painkillers

Opioid-containing painkillers are virtually indispensable in clinical practice and are typically used in postoperative patients and patients undergoing cancer treatment.

3 Mar 2020

Opioid prescription for chronic non-cancer pain increased in the last two-and-a-half decades

The number of people with chronic non-cancer pain prescribed an opioid medicine worldwide increased in the last two-and-a-half decades.

25 Feb 2020

Proactive outreach can be an effective way to improve long-term opioid use disorder care

Proactive outreach, including knocking on the doors of individuals who recently overdosed on opioids, can be an effective way to engage more people who have opioid use disorder with long-term care, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

20 Feb 2020

Conservative Indiana adopted needle exchanges but still faces local resistance

Back when Cody Gabbard was shooting heroin, his only significant human contact was with others in the throes of addiction, who only cared to see him when he had drugs.

12 Feb 2020

Heroin use increasing among American adults

Earlier studies have shown a startling sevenfold increase in illnesses and deaths directly traceable to heroin use in the USA over less than 20 years. Along with this epidemic, HIV and hepatitis infections acquired by injections of drugs have also broken out in large clusters in many places. Yet, the extent of heroin use itself has been neglected. The current study looked at this overlooked area of research.

11 Feb 2020

Good rehab is hard to find

Pattie Vargas saw with frightening clarity that her son Joel, 25 at the time, had a life-threatening drug problem. He came home one day in 2007 "high as a kite," went to bed and slept four days straight, Vargas, now a 65-year-old resident of Vacaville, California, recalls.

5 Feb 2020

US life expectancy increases for the first time in 4 years

New data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that life expectancy in the United States increased in 2018.

30 Jan 2020

UCI-led study reveals link between early life adversity and opioid addiction

Individuals with a history of early life adversity are disproportionately prone to opioid addiction. A new UCI-led study reveals why.

24 Jan 2020

Majority of people knowingly use fentanyl, UBC research shows

Fentanyl use by people who use drugs has doubled since 2015, and two-thirds of people are aware they've taken it, finds new research out of British Columbia, the Canadian province that has experienced the highest number of illicit drug toxicity deaths as a result of the opioid crisis.

24 Jan 2020

Collaborative project to address the local opioid epidemic

The University of Arizona is partnering with the Tucson Police Department, CODAC Health, Recovery & Wellness, and Pima County as part of a three-year, $1.47 million Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant to route people with opioid use disorders toward treatment instead of jail.

21 Jan 2020

Most youths do not get timely addiction treatment after opioid overdose

A study of more than 4 million Medicaid claims records during a recent seven-year period concludes that less than a third of the nearly 3,800 U.S. adolescents and young adults who experienced a nonfatal opioid overdose got timely (within 30 days) follow-up addiction treatment to curb or prevent future misuse and reduce the risk of a second overdose.

17 Jan 2020

Medicaid expansion linked to reduction in opioid overdose mortality across the U.S.

The expansion of Medicaid coverage for low-income adults permitted by the Affordable Care Act was associated with a six percent reduction in total opioid overdose deaths nationally, according to new research from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and University of California, Davis.

11 Jan 2020

Study finds increase in high-strength painkiller poisonings among children

The proportion of high-strength painkiller poisonings among children which result in emergency hospital admissions has increased, according to research published in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Toxicology.

22 Dec 2019

Proportion of powerful painkiller poisonings among children has increased, shows study

20 Dec 2019

Contribution of suicide to opioid-related deaths may be overstated, study suggests

The study is the first to use national data on opioid overdose deaths between 2000 and 2017 to find out what share of these deaths in individuals age 15 and older were unintentional, due to suicide, or of undetermined intent.

17 Dec 2019

Quick and simple method for identifying illicit drugs in powdered mixtures

The composition of suspicious powders that may contain illicit drugs can be analyzed using a quick and simple method called magneto-Archimedes levitation, according to a new study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

11 Dec 2019

Study: Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. are actually multiple opioid epidemics

The United States is suffering from several different simultaneous opioid epidemics, rather than just a single crisis, according to an academic study of deaths caused by drug overdoses.

9 Dec 2019

Built for counterterrorism, this high-tech machine is now used to detect fentanyl

Sarah Mackin runs a cotton swab around the inside of a tiny plastic baggie that appears empty. She spreads whatever residue the swab picked up onto a test strip that resembles a Band-Aid, then slides the strip into a buzzing machine about the size of a boxed, take-home pie.

4 Dec 2019