Heroin Addiction News and Research

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Opioid addiction linked to neural differences in response to drug cues

An Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai study sheds new light on some of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of opioid addiction, which accounted for three-quarters of the more than 100,000 fatal drug overdoses in the United States in 2021.

18 Jul 2023

Reentry programs to help former prisoners obtain health care are often underused

When Matthew Boyd was released from a Georgia state prison in December 2020, officials sent him home without medicines he uses to manage chronic heart and lung conditions and high blood pressure, he said.

8 Mar 2023

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

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

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

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

Opioids like ‘lean’ permeate hip-hop culture, but dangers are downplayed

Nykerrius Williams knows about the close relationship between hip-hop and opioid use. Williams, 27, an independent rapper from Gibsland, Louisiana, who goes by the name Young Nyke, took oxycodone pills for the first time when he was 16 and has continued patterns of misuse of those pills, as well as Lortabs, Xanax and codeine cough syrups, until recently. To him, it's part of the business.

28 May 2021

NICE guideline advises GPs to stop prescribing opioids for chronic pain

Published today, the first ever NICE guideline on the treatment of chronic pain has said that GPs should not prescribe opioids and other medicines like paracetamol to patients because they could be ‘harmful’ and cause addiction.

5 Aug 2020

Jails and prisons spring thousands to prevent coronavirus outbreaks

Terry Smith, a 65-year-old Vietnam veteran with PTSD, multiple health issues and a history of homelessness, spent nearly three years in San Francisco County Jail awaiting trial on a burglary charge. The final several weeks were served in the full flush of a burgeoning viral pandemic.

16 Apr 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

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

Cannabis could help people with opioid addiction

A new study has shown that cannabidiol or CBD, found in cannabis, could help people with opioid use disorder or addiction. CBD can help reduce the symptoms of craving among addicts when on withdrawal from the opioid and also reduce the accompanying anxiety and restlessness write the authors of the study.

22 May 2019

Dopamine neurons play role in reinforcing addictive effects of heroin

Scientists have made a major advance in untangling the brain circuits that lead to the powerful addictive effects of heroin, a study in the open-access journal eLife reports.

30 Oct 2018

Judges in California losing sway over court-ordered drug treatment

Dressed in jailhouse orange, with hands and feet shackled, Jimi Ray Haynes stood up in a Santa Cruz County courtroom and pleaded guilty to a felony weapons charge.

1 Oct 2018

People battling substance use disorders may benefit from meth-relapse prevention compound

New research raises the possibility that a wider group of people battling substance use disorders may benefit from a Scripps Research-developed relapse-prevention compound than previously thought.

17 Sep 2018

Patients with chronic pain feel caught in an opioid-prescribing debate

It started with a rolled ankle during a routine Army training exercise. Shannon Hubbard never imagined it was the prologue to one of the most debilitating pain conditions known to exist, called complex regional pain syndrome.

1 Aug 2018

A simple pill for meth addicts on the cards

Researchers from Australia's Curtin University have developed a simple pill that could be used to treat methamphetamine addicts. It would soon be tried in a clinical trial to prove its efficacy and utility said the researchers.

18 Jul 2018

After opioid overdose, only 30 percent get medicine to treat addiction

More than 115 Americans die every day of opioid overdose. Many more survive thanks to the antidote medication, naloxone. But a study out Monday finds that just 3 in 10 patients revived by an EMT or in an emergency room received the follow-up medication known to avoid another life-threatening event.

19 Jun 2018

Telemedicine for addiction treatment? Picture remains fuzzy

When President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency, it came with a regulatory change intended to make it easier for people to get care. The declaration allows for doctors to prescribe addiction medicine virtually, without ever seeing the patient in person.

14 Dec 2017

Treating the new hep C generation on their turf

Once a week, Dr. Diana Sylvestre puts her medical expertise to use in a rickety old house frequented by drug users in this small Northern California city.

7 Dec 2017