Community researchers discuss the impact of brain injury at BC Consensus Day at the University of Victoria. As many as 600,000 overdose-related brain injuries have occurred in Canada during the toxic drug crisis.
(Mauricio A. Garcia-Barrera)
The toxic drug crisis is not only about fatalities. A much larger number of people survive overdoses, and are left with brain injuries. A national strategy to support and treat them is crucial.
Democrats and Republicans are equally less likely to support a drug treatment clinic if it’s in their neighborhood.
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Alcohol is responsible for more deaths than overdoses from opioids and all other substances combined, yet less than 10% of people with alcohol use disorder receive treatment.
Police detectives sort through evidence after raiding a suspected meth lab.
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Many people wrongly assume that cannabis use during pregnancy is safe. Research is increasingly documenting a host of serious health harms from prenatal exposure to cannabis and other substances.
People mourn loved ones who have died from drug overdoses before replica tombstones in Binghamton, N.Y., on Aug. 19, 2023.
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Drugs can interact with one another in ways that are harmful. A study finds that taking oxycodone with certain SSRIs can make an opioid overdose more likely.
Opioids can help reduce the amount of medication needed to achieve anesthesia.
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Non-opioid directives allow patients to refuse opioids in all health care settings. For surgical procedures that require anesthesia, however, this may do more harm than good.
The improper prescription of opioids for pain treatment is one of the central drivers of the opioid epidemic.
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Ending the opioid epidemic requires addressing not only treatment gaps in addiction and overdose, but also inadequate pain management.
Naloxone can prevent deaths from opioid overdose, but there is no way to reverse the effects of benzodiazepine overdose without risk.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward)
Fentanyl adulteration led to the replacement of heroin in the unregulated drug supply of British Columbia. Now that benzodiazepines are present in many opioids, are we headed towards a ‘new normal?’
One potential way to make opioids less addictive is to make them target injured tissue rather than the healthy brain.
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While the COVID-19 pandemic raged on, the opioid epidemic got worse as drug overdose deaths soared. New research proposes a way to chemically modify opioids to reduce the risk of addiction.
The Biden administration can make significant changes in health care for Americans.
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The 2020 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine goes to the discoverers of the hepatitis C virus. There’s an effective cure but homelessness and the opioid epidemic are driving a surge in infections.
On average, more than 130 Americans die from an opioid overdose every day.
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
About 1 in 4 people prescribed an opioid for pain end up abusing it. New methods to reduce the need for opioids after surgery have been shown to work – and thus minimize the need for such drugs.
While critics accuse companies facing lots of lawsuits of using bankruptcy as a sort of ‘get of jail free card,’ the reality of the legal procedure is more complicated.