Heroin News and Research

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Heroin is a very addictive chemical called diacetylmorphine. Heroin is a modified form of morphine, a highly abundant opium derived from the seedpods of the poppy plant.

State highlights: Calif. Governor's budget to include $670M in new Medi-Cal spending; Mass. launches new electronic health records updates

When he unveils his new budget plan Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown will propose billions of dollars in new spending on schools, health care, social services and environmental programs as California reaps the benefits of an economic turnaround. … The proposed budget includes $670 million more for Medi-Cal, the state's public health care program, which is expanding as part of President Obama's federal overhaul. The program is expected to serve a quarter of California's residents next year.

10 Jan 2014

First Edition: January 9, 2014

Today's headlines include reports about how the politics of the health law continue to play out on Capitol Hill.

9 Jan 2014

Nociceptin in brain naturally moderates effects of stress

Collaborating scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of Camerino in Italy have published new findings on a system in the brain that naturally moderates the effects of stress.

8 Jan 2014

Chemists able to trace narcotics substances, prescription drugs in Swedish wastewater

Chemists at Ume- University in Sweden have been able to trace narcotics substances and prescription drugs in measurements of wastewater from 33 Swedish sewage treatment plants. Cocaine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine, in measurable concentrations, were found in a total of half of the locations.

17 Dec 2013

Life events influence genes important for memory and drug use

New human and animal research released today demonstrates how experiences impact genes that influence behavior and health. Today's studies, presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health, provide new insights into how experience might produce long-term brain changes in behaviors like drug addiction and memory formation.

13 Nov 2013

Studies suggest novel therapies for nicotine, heroin and gambling addiction

Studies released today suggest promising new treatments for nicotine and heroin addiction, and further our understanding of pathological gambling and heroin abuse in those suffering chronic pain.

12 Nov 2013

Viewpoints: Shinseki's efforts haven't yet solved VA's problems; treating children with mental illness is complicated; abuse of painkillers

Just in time for Veterans Day, the embattled secretary of Veterans Affairs, Eric K. Shinseki, announced last week that his department had reduced its backlog of overdue disability claims from more than 600,000 in March to about 400,000. "The trend line is in the right direction," Shinseki told reporters, noting that the VA had cut the number of claims older than a year by 93%. With hundreds of thousands of cases still unresolved, Shinseki hasn't gotten much credit so far -; but to the surprise of his critics, he's on track to achieve his goal of eliminating the backlog by 2015. Still, that won't solve all the VA's problems; far from it (Doyle McManus, 11/10).

12 Nov 2013

Teenagers in child welfare system are at higher-than-average risk of abusing marijuana

Teenagers in the child welfare system are at higher-than-average risk of abusing marijuana, inhalants and other drugs, according to a study in the November issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

4 Nov 2013

Study looks at attitudes toward drug use among high school seniors

High school seniors who frown upon the use of drugs are most likely to be female, nonsmokers or hold strong religious beliefs, according to a study- by Joseph Palamar of New York University. Palamar examines how teenagers' attitudes toward marijuana influenced their thoughts on the further use of other illicit drugs.

9 Oct 2013

Report: States lax in taking steps to curb prescription drug abuse

The number of deaths attributed to the abuse of painkillers and other prescription drugs has risen sharply in recent years.

9 Oct 2013

Study: Opioid prescribing for non-cancer pain increases

Prescribing of strong opioid medications for non-cancer pain in the United States has nearly doubled over the past decade, reports a study in the October issue of Medical Care, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

16 Sep 2013

D&A PHARMA to present 3 clinical studies for ALCOVER in 14th Congress of ESBRA at Warsaw

D&A PHARMA, a leading company in the Addiction therapeutic area, announces today its strong participation in the 14th Congress of European Company of Biomedical Search on the Alcoholism (ESBRA), which will be held in Warsaw from September 8th to 11th.

7 Sep 2013

Opioid dependence causes greatest health burden of all illicit drugs

The first ever analysis of the global and regional prevalence of dependence upon the four major categories of illicit drugs – amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine, and opioids (such as heroin) – has revealed that opioid dependence causes the greatest health burden (overall death and illness) of all the illicit drugs. The results come from new analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, and are published in The Lancet.

29 Aug 2013

Ingestion of strong opioids can cause central nervous system depression, death in young children

Medication poisonings among children are an important public health problem. During 2010-2011, an average of 1500 children under 6 years of age was evaluated in emergency departments each year due to unintentional exposure to buprenorphine. Ingestion of strong opioids, such as buprenorphine, can cause central nervous system depression, respiratory depression, and death in young children.

29 Aug 2013

Report shows nonmedical use of pain relievers may increase risk of using heroin later

A new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows that people aged 12 to 49 who had used prescription pain relievers nonmedically were 19 times more likely to have initiated heroin use recently (within the past 12 months of being interviewed) than others in that age group (0.39 percent versus 0.02 percent).

23 Aug 2013

Few physicians receive adequate training to help patients with chronic pain

Pain is the most common reason a patient sees a physician but few physicians have received adequate training to help their patients, according to a Henry Ford Hospital article published in the Journal of American Osteopathic Association.

13 Aug 2013

Expansion of heroin, opioid medical treatment needed to reduce overdose deaths

A new report from Simon Fraser University researcher Bohdan Nosyk calls for the expansion of heroin and opioid medical treatment to stem the increase of overdose deaths.

7 Aug 2013

State highlights: D.C. to use cash reserves to pay Medicaid providers off; Texas, Planned Parenthood reach overbilling settlement; Veteran health centers at colleges

How do you spend $48 million in unbudgeted taxpayer money without getting an OK from elected lawmakers? In the District of Columbia, there's pretty much only one way, and that's the way Mayor Vincent C. Gray is proposing to settle a high-stakes dispute with D.C. Chartered Health Plan. Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro confirmed Wednesday that the plan is to pay the District's share of the settlement -- a little over $35 million, with federal Medicaid dollars accounting for the rest -- out of the city's contingency cash reserve (DeBonis, 7/24).

26 Jul 2013

Psychiatry professor selected for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow 2013-2014

For millions of people across the United States, health and well-being depends on policy decisions made at the federal level. With mental health at the center of today's health policy discussion, Amir Afkhami, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and global health at the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), will bring his "boots on the ground" experience in mental health policy to the government as a 2013-2014 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow.

25 Jul 2013

State highlights: Court hears arguments on Fla. 'gun-gag' law; Univ. of Minn. seeks to scale back coverage; fewer Utah docs see Medicaid patients

The top attorney for the state of Florida asked a federal appeals court today to reinstate a Florida law that regulates what physicians can ask patients about gun ownership, asserting that the law does not actually stifle such questions. Yes, it does, countered a lawyer representing several Florida medical societies and individual physicians who challenged the law as an infringement on their First Amendment right to free speech (Lowes, 7/18).

20 Jul 2013