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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.

Fentanyl in high school: A Texas community grapples with the reach of the deadly opioid

The hallways of Lehman High School looked like any other on a recent fall day. Its 2,100 students talked and laughed as they hurried to their next classes, moving past walls covered with flyers that advertised homecoming events, clubs, and football games.

10 Nov 2022

Hospitals have been slow to bring on addiction specialists

In December, Marie, who lives in coastal Swampscott, Massachusetts, began having trouble breathing. Three days after Christmas, she woke up gasping for air and dialed 911.

11 Oct 2022

Specific brain circuit initially implicated in animals found to be impaired in people with cocaine or heroin addiction

White matter in the brain that was previously implicated in animal studies has now been suggested to be specifically impaired in the brains of people with addiction to cocaine or heroin, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Baylor College of Medicine.

6 Oct 2022

Star-shaped brain cells can "turn off" neurons involved in heroin relapse

Neuroscientists from the Medical University of South Carolina report in Science Advances that star-shaped brain cells known as astrocytes can "turn off" neurons involved in relapse to heroin.

5 Oct 2022

Artificial intelligence tools speed up the process of identifying people who inject drugs

An automated process that combines natural language processing and machine learning identified people who inject drugs (PWID) in electronic health records more quickly and accurately than current methods that rely on manual record reviews.

22 Sep 2022

High-quality human clinical trials needed to determine the benefits of CBD for heart disease patients

As cannabidiol (CBD) use rises, high quality randomized clinical trials are needed to determine if anti-inflammatory benefits of CBD for heart disease seen in preclinical data will work in a real-world setting, according to research presented at ACC Latin America 2022 Together with CardioAcademic.

5 Sep 2022

A needle exchange project modeled on urban efforts aims to save lives in rural Nevada

Richard Cusolito believes he's saving lives by distributing clean syringes and needles to people who use drugs in this rural area of northeastern Nevada — but he knows some residents disagree.

24 Aug 2022

Marijuana and hallucinogen use by young adults reached historic highs in 2021

Marijuana and hallucinogen use in the past year reported by young adults 19 to 30 years old increased significantly in 2021 compared to five and 10 years ago, reaching historic highs in this age group since 1988, according to the Monitoring the Future (MTF) panel study.

22 Aug 2022

Methamphetamine use is pervasive and drives overdoses in rural communities across the U.S.

Methamphetamine remains a stubbornly prevalent illicit substance in large swaths of rural America, according to a new study by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University and other institutions.

15 Aug 2022

‘Still a lot of pain’: Four years after mass shooting, Texas community grapples with fallout

In May 2018, after a high school shooting killed 10 people, the Santa Fe Resiliency Center opened in a church. Any resident could see a counselor, attend a support group, and take part in a healing mandala coloring class, music therapy, or a workshop on emotional first aid — all free of charge.

15 Aug 2022

They call it ‘tranq’ — and it’s making street drugs even more dangerous

Approaching a van that distributes supplies for safer drug use in Greenfield, Massachusetts, a man named Kyle noticed an alert about xylazine.

11 Aug 2022

Experts use tools from artificial intelligence to rapidly identify substances that cause overdose deaths

An automated process based on computer algorithms that can read text from medical examiners' death certificates can substantially speed up data collection of overdose deaths – which in turn can ensure a more rapid public health response time than the system currently used, new UCLA research finds.

9 Aug 2022

Study highlights the urgency of removing barriers to accessing medications for opioid use disorder

The opioid overdose and death epidemic continues to worsen across the United States, but medications such as methadone, buprenorphine, and extended-release naltrexone are proven to reduce opioid overdoses by more than 50 percent.

4 Aug 2022

Future wave of opioid-involved overdose deaths will spike in rural and urban areas

Over the past 21 years of opioid overdose deaths-;from prescription drugs to heroin to synthetic and semisynthetic opioids such as fentanyl-;geography has played a role in where opioid-involved overdose deaths have occurred, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

28 Jul 2022

Study uncovers a new, specific target for developing treatments for cocaine addiction

Researchers have found that blocking certain acetylcholine receptors in the lateral habenula (LHb), an area of the brain that balances reward and aversion, made it harder to resist seeking cocaine in a rat model of impulsive behavior.

28 Jun 2022

Data-driven simulation model projects three key strategies that could save many lives from opioid crisis

A significant challenge in addressing the country's opioid crisis is that policies based on past patterns of behavior may have unintended consequences because those patterns change over time.

24 Jun 2022

Sobering lessons in untying the knot of a homeless crisis

Michelle Farris never expected to become homeless, but here she was, sifting through garbage and towering piles of debris accumulated along a roadway on the outskirts of Northeast Portland.

21 Jun 2022

As Biden fights overdoses, harm reduction groups face local opposition

Casey Malish had just pulled into an intersection in the 2nd Ward when a woman with tattoos and pinkish hair unexpectedly hopped into the back seat of his gray Mazda. He handles outreach for the Houston Harm Reduction Alliance, a nonprofit that helps drug users like her stay alive.

14 Jun 2022

Aromatherapy can help control pain and reduce opioid consumption, preliminary study suggests

Aromatherapy reduces post-surgical opioid use by half in hip replacement patients anxious before their operation, according to a new preliminary study being presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC) in Milan, Italy (4-6 June).

2 Jun 2022

MGH scientists develop a data-driven simulation model to address the rampant opioid crisis

A data-driven simulation model designed to help policymakers to better understand and address the nation's rampant opioid crisis has been developed by a team of scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital.

31 May 2022