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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.

The new MADD movement: Parents rise up against drug deaths

Life as he knew it ended for Matt Capelouto two days before Christmas in 2019, when he found his 20-year-old daughter, Alexandra, dead in her childhood bedroom in Temecula, California. Rage overtook grief when authorities ruled her death an accident.

23 May 2022

Quality of drug supply declined in Vancouver during the COVID-19 pandemic, study finds

More than a third of people who use drugs in Vancouver, Canada reported a decline in the quality of drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

11 May 2022

Lifesaving drug for opioid use disorder underutilized

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Saint Louis University found that less than half of Americans who received treatment for opioid use disorder over a five-year period were offered a potentially lifesaving medication.

10 May 2022

Study shows how a non-opioid approach successfully manages women's pain after C-section

For years, women recovering from cesarean section (C-section) deliveries have been given devices that let them, with a button, control the flow of opioid painkillers into their IV line. But as researchers and policymakers push to curb the use of opioids, clinicians are developing new strategies for treating pain after C-sections.

3 May 2022

UK experts share their work in the field of opioid use disorder research at 2022 Rx Summit

University of Kentucky experts on the front lines of the nation's opioid and addiction crises will share their work in the field of opioid use disorder research, treatment and prevention this week at the 2022 Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta April 18-22.

19 Apr 2022

Outpatient antibiotic treatment for infective endocarditis improves outcomes, reduces costs

A new modeling study suggests that when patients who inject opioids continue an antibiotic treatment for infective endocarditis outside of the hospital, they experienced better long-term health outcomes than patients who receive the standard four to six weeks of inpatient, intravenous antibiotic therapy.

28 Feb 2022

Scientific statement highlights the uncertainty about health effects of marijuana

Despite the perception that marijuana is harmless, there is some scientific evidence challenging that belief, and there are many unanswered questions about its impact on brain health, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement published today in the Association's journal Stroke.

10 Feb 2022

Rapid, highly accurate drug detection vital to reducing the adverse impacts of addiction

Rapid, accessible and highly accurate detection of addictive substances such as opiates and cocaine is vital to reducing the adverse personal and societal impacts of addiction, something current drug detection systems can take too long to provide.

22 Jan 2022

UTEP to develop new initiative to reduce HIV in people who use drugs in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border

The University of Texas at El Paso will develop a sustainable public health intervention to suppress human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in people who use drugs in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border region to help slow the spread of HIV.

11 Dec 2021

CDC launches complementary education campaigns to save more lives from drug overdose

To save more lives from drug overdose, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently launched four complementary education campaigns intended to reach young adults ages 18-;34 years.

30 Oct 2021

Women may be more vulnerable to drug addiction and addiction-like behaviors than men

The results of several new studies focusing on sex differences in pain and addiction indicate females could be more susceptible to drug addiction and addiction-like behaviors than males. Researchers also explored the role of lack of sleep on the likeliness to relapse. This is due in part to hormone differences in females and males. Data from the studies will be presented virtually October 19–22 at the American Physiological Society's seventh conference on New Trends in Sex and Gender Medicine.

20 Oct 2021

Study uncovers neuronal circuitry that may play a key role in mediating pain-induced anhedonia

A new study published today in Nature Neuroscience has uncovered neuronal circuitry in the brain of rodents that may play an important role in mediating pain-induced anhedonia - a decrease in motivation to perform reward-driven behaviors.

18 Oct 2021

Researchers explore how opioids may have become so widely abused

Researchers may have uncovered new answers on how to create safer opioids. Design a new opioid to bypass the part of brain that feels pleasure, but retain the analgesic properties, which make opioids one of the most effective pain relievers.

15 Oct 2021

Heroin overdose deaths more likely to occur shortly after hospital discharge

Drug-related deaths are four times more likely to occur in the two days after hospital discharge than at any other time among users of opioids such as heroin, according to research led by UCL, Public Health England (PHE) and King's College London.

6 Oct 2021

Fatal opioid overdoses four times more likely in the first two days after hospital discharge

The period after hospital discharge is a high-risk time for people who use illicit opioids such as heroin, according to new research publishing October 5th in the open access journal PLOS Medicine.

5 Oct 2021

Study finds rise in methamphetamine-involved overdose deaths from 2015 to 2019

Overdose deaths involving methamphetamine nearly tripled from 2015 to 2019 among people ages 18-64 in the United States, according to a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.

22 Sep 2021

Hospitalized patients with opioid use disorder die at a rate comparable to heart attack patients

Hospitalized patients with opioid use disorder died at a rate comparable to those who suffered heart attacks within a year of hospital discharge, according to a new study from Oregon Health & Science University.

15 Sep 2021

Study finds increasing disparities in opioid overdose deaths for Black people

Non-Hispanic Black individuals in four U.S. states experienced a 38% increase in the rate of opioid overdose deaths from 2018 to 2019, while the rates for other race and ethnicity groups held steady or decreased, according to a new study by the National Institutes of Health published in the American Journal of Public Health.

9 Sep 2021

Marijuana use among college-age adults remains at historically high levels in 2020

Marijuana use continued to rise among college students over the past five years and remained at historically high levels among same-aged peers who are not in college in 2020, according to survey results from the 2020 Monitoring the Future (MTF) panel study.

8 Sep 2021

Discovery of new urinary biomarkers can boost the surveillance of synthetic drug abuse

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore has come up with a new solution to boost the surveillance of designer drug abuse.

30 Aug 2021