Josh Ledesma displays safe injection supplies with outreach specialist Rachel Bolton outside the Access Drug User Health Program drop-in center in Cambridge, Massachusetts on March 31, 2020.
Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
From colonial poppy fields to pharmatrash, southern Africa offers a fascinating history of drug regimes – one that helps us make sense of drug policies and legislation today.
A man injects drugs in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Feb. 6, 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
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.
An illustration of Crawford Long removing a tumor from the neck of James Venable.
Crawford W. Long Museum
Most medical historians agree that one of the most important advances in medicine was the use of ether to numb pain during surgery. Just who deserves credit for this has been another story.
Given the stiffening US view of China, the cooling of tensions will unlikely last long.
AAP/The Conversation
In the wash-up of the G20 meetings, it seems China has come away with the better deal – at least for now.
Few medical schools offer training in addictions medicine and most doctors feel they lack the specialist expertise to deal with the inpatient opioid crisis.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan)
Joseph Palamar, New York University Langone Medical Center
Many people may misunderstand the basics about opioids. That prevents researchers from understanding the full scope of the epidemic.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams demonstrates the proper procedure for administering a nasal injection of naloxone on reporter Jennifer Lott, left, during a visit to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., May 17, 2018.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
Cyrus Ahalt, University of California, San Francisco
One study argues that naloxone increases opioid use because it protects against death from overdose. But a closer analysis shows Narcan is the number one public health tool to fight the overdose epidemic.
Chris Burkett deposits old needles at a needle exchange program in Aberdeen, Wash., June 14, 2017.
AP Photo/David Goldman
Opioids kill 100 people each day in the US, more than vehicular accidents. Those addicted are often left without treatment. An addiction researcher offers six steps to address the epidemic.
A woman holds a photo of her best friend, who died of a drug overdose in January 2017, before a march to draw attention to the opioid overdose epidemic, in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, B.C.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
Catastrophic increases in opioid overdose deaths across Canada require a broad response -- tackling housing, food and income insecurity as well as the contaminated drug supply.
As Canada moves towards legalization of cannabis in 2018, there is growing evidence of the drug's potential to treat opioid addiction itself, as well as the chronic pain that often drives it.
Even a tiny amount of fentanyl can be fatal, but the drug is turning up in batches of heroin the UK.
TM_SALE
One in five Canadians suffers chronic pain and almost 2,500 died last year from opioid overdose. A National Pain Strategy promises to tackle both problems.