There were more than 100,000 opioid-related deaths in North America in 2022. How the crisis grew to such proportions, and three potential paths to ending it.
A new therapy aims to undo some of the harmful and restrictive patterns patients have been taught to ‘protect’ their back from pain. Instead, they’re learning to trust and move their body again.
A police policy of not making arrests for simple possession is a way to essentially decriminalize personal drug use. However, confiscating drugs — even without arrests — can be harmful in many ways.
Prescription medications can help people with opioid use disorder avoid the risks of relapse and overdose. But stigma based on misperceptions about addiction limits their use.
Most consumables in Canada have quality controls that inform purchasing and consumption decisions. People who use illicit drugs deserve the same. Drug checking provides that harm-reduction service.
Opioids are the one of the most prescribed pain-relief for people with low back and neck pain. But new research shows they don’t effectively relieve low back or neck pain and can result in worse pain.
Harm reduction is grounded in evidence. But policies, stigma and ignorance about substance use still create barriers in battling Canada’s drug poisoning crisis.
Unlike opioid drugs like morphine and fentanyl that travel throughout the body, the opioids your body produces are released in small quantities to specific locations.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author is just one of many artists from Appalachia who are probing the crisis in their work, while taking pains to ensure that it doesn’t define the region and its people.
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Narcan will make the lifesaving drug more widely available, especially to those who might be likely to witness or respond to opioid overdoses.
Xylazine, or tranq, is increasingly being mixed with drugs like fentanyl or heroin and can be difficult to detect. Most people who use drugs are unable to tell if they have been exposed to it.