In the midst of a public health crisis, with increasing rates of death from opioid overdose, the Ontario government is clawing back life-saving measures.
A man walks in a back alley in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, February 2019. More people fatally overdosed in British Columbia last year compared with 2017 despite efforts to combat the province’s public health emergency.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
A policy response focused on reducing prescription opioids will not resolve North America’s opioid crisis. And it is hurting many adults who live with otherwise unbearable chronic pain.
Lawsuits against Purdue say its drug Oxycontin played a key role in the opioid epidemic.
Reuters/George Fre
OxyContin maker Purdue has reportedly been mulling a bankruptcy filling, just as the first of around 2,000 lawsuits against it prepares to go to trial.
One in 3 people with severe depression do not respond to treatment.
TZIDO SUN/Shutterstock.com
A safety committee convened by the FDA has declared esketamine safe for severe depression. But isn’t this drug the same as ketamine, an illegal street drug? A medical anthropologist explains.
Many cases of lower back pain are best managed through education, exercise and manual treatment.
(Shutterstock)
The over-medicalization of back pain is a global concern. New research in Canada shows that people with lower income as well as rural and remote dwellers are less likely to access physiotherapy care.
Most people are fine with a drink, but when one becomes several, there may be a problem.
Zachary Byer/Shutterstock.com
Drinking among older adults is up. And while overdrinking may not pose an immediate threat of overdose, it is not healthy for seniors, many of whom take several medications and are at risk for falls.
The growing trend of sexualised injection meth use — colloquially referred to as ‘slamming’ — is a growing public health concern due to the dual risk of transmission of HIV and other blood-borne viruses via both injection and sexual transmission.
(Shutterstock)
The sexualized use of crystal meth by gay men is one of the key drivers of rising HIV rates and has many negative mental health consequences. Integrated sexual and substance use care is vital.
The biological pathways related to physical and emotional pain overlap.
Issam Hammoudi/Unsplash
People who use painkillers for non-medical reasons often justify it as a form of self-medication for legitimate medical diagnoses such as depression, anxiety and stress.
Most countries need to find a happy balance between the American attitude that all pain needs to be cured – and the ethos in other countries that pain is to be endured.
Tao Che, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Scientists have taken atomic resolution snapshots of an opioid receptor interacting with a drug. Now they are using these images to design “biased” opioids that block pain without the dangerous side effects.
The term “epidemic” is now being used for more than infectious diseases. So what does it actually mean?
AAPONE/Ahmed Jallanzo/
The obesity epidemic, the flu epidemic, the opioid epidemic… in the 21st century, everything seems to be an “epidemic”. But what does the term actually mean?
Every patient is different.
TippaPatt/shutterstock.com
Scientists are just starting to understand how your parents’ genes and experiences might shape your own susceptibility to dangerous drugs. Could that help to stop addictions before they start?