Heroin News and Research

RSS

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.

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

Study reveals clue to preventing addiction relapse

With any addiction in which a user has successfully resisted a chemical, activity or substance, relapse is vexing. And with opioids, it's often deadly. Fatal overdoses following relapse from an opioid addiction is reaching epidemic proportions.

2 Dec 2019

Risk of opioid overdose rises after de-addiction treatment completion

A study from Columbia University reveals that patients, who have been successfully treated with buprenorphine for opioid addiction, are at a greater risk of overdose after completion of the treatment. The study was titled, “Acute care, prescription opioid use, and overdose following discontinuation of long-term buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder”, and was published in the latest issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry. This study was funded and supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

2 Dec 2019

Researchers uncover the binding mechanism of opioid receptor

Together with colleagues from Shanghai, Brussels, Canada and the USA, researchers from the University of Bonn have uncovered the binding mechanism of an important pain receptor.

27 Nov 2019

Patients qualifying for Medicare due to disability have higher rates of opioid overdose deaths

New findings from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston show that patients qualifying for Medicare because of a disability have the highest rates of opioid overdose deaths compared with older Medicare beneficiaries and commercial insurance beneficiaries.

26 Nov 2019

Not yesterday’s cocaine: Death toll rising from tainted drug

A pain pill prescription for nerve damage revived Gwendolyn Barton's long-dormant addiction last year, awakening fears she would slip back into smoking crack cocaine.

25 Nov 2019

Fentanyl-involved overdoses are concentrated in resource-deprived neighborhoods

Fentanyl overdoses cluster geographically more than non-fentanyl overdoses, according to a study just released by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

22 Nov 2019

New curated library unveiled to help address the opioid epidemic

A new curated library, activated today, provides a centralized toolkit for policymakers, patients and health care professionals working to address the nation's opioid epidemic.

20 Nov 2019

Experts outline new framework to improve care for opioid use disorder

Every day, more than 100 Americans lose their lives to the opioid crisis, and researchers from across the nation are racing to find solutions.

20 Nov 2019

Surgeon general’s marijuana warning omits crucial context

Speaking about a recent federal advisory on marijuana, Dr. Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, put a new spin on long-standing admonitions about the drug.

15 Nov 2019

Adoption of state Prescription Drug Monitoring programs linked with death rates from heroin poisoning

A new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health found a consistent association between the adoption of state Prescription Drug Monitoring programs (PDMP) and death rates from heroin poisoning.

14 Nov 2019

Urban hotspots of opioid abuse among high-schoolers revealed

A new study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that in several cities and counties the proportion of high-schoolers who have ever used heroin or misused prescription opioids is much higher than the national average.

14 Nov 2019

Opioid overdose treatment: intranasal vs intramuscular naloxone

Opioid addiction and dependency have become a common plague in many countries of the world. Accompanying these conditions, opioid overdose is being increasingly encountered in many emergency settings. The standard and highly effective antidote for this is naloxone hydrochloride, an opioid antagonist which has been in use for over 4 decades.

13 Nov 2019

New tool could help detect smaller concentrations of drug powders

In 2017, more than 28,000 cases of fatal overdoses in the United States involved fentanyl. Just a pinch of the synthetic opioid, estimated to be 100 times stronger than morphine, can be lethal.

12 Nov 2019

Fingerprint sampling could help police distinguish between drug users and non-users

Researchers have developed a tool that can determine whether someone has used heroin, even if they have washed their hands.

11 Nov 2019

How Germany averted an opioid crisis

In 2016, 10 times as many Americans as Germans died as a result of drug overdoses, mostly opiates. Three times as many Americans as Germans experienced opioid addiction.

11 Nov 2019

High hepatitis C rates in Ohio linked to opioid misuse

In an effort to further measure the opioid epidemic's impact in Ohio, the Ohio Alliance for Innovation in Population Health studied hepatitis C rates within the state and discovered consistently high rates in the southern Appalachia region over a five-year period.

7 Nov 2019

Pioneering brain chip to fight opioid addiction: first US clinical test

Opioid addiction is among the biggest medical conditions troubling the U.S. today, and is far from reaching a solution. In 2017, it claimed almost 50 deaths per 100,000 in the state of West Virginia – the highest drug-overdose-related death rate in the US. Today, however, there is a gleam of hope from a new trial of an old technology to help fight this battle – a brain-embedded chip to counter opioid-induced cravings in treatment-refractory patients.

6 Nov 2019

New online course launched to help providers understand every facet of opioid crisis

Even if they never write a single prescription for an opioid painkiller, or care for someone who has overdosed on heroin or fentanyl, people who work in every area of American healthcare need to understand how the opioid epidemic is affecting their patients, their families and their communities, and how to prevent new cases of opioid addiction.

30 Oct 2019