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About Addiction: School, prescriptions, heroin and morality
It’s Monday and you get another great summary of news and research about addiction that have been making noise this week. If you care about addiction and about recovery, you know you want to stay abreast of what’s important and A3 wants to give you just that! So read on.. Recovery High: A new kind…
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Is opiate pain medication safe for addicts? Part I
A recent user question on VYou (see my response here) addressed the issue of prescribing addicts with opioid pain medication. Since prescription medication abuse and addiction is on the rise and getting more and more attention in the media every year, the question of whether addicts in recovery, or people who have dealt with substance…
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Naltrexone the addiction cure?
CNN released a news article a little while back titled “With anti-addiction pill, ‘no urge, no craving‘” that seems to suggest that a cure for addiction has been found. As usual, news reporting on these sort of topics revolves around a kernel of truth, with nice window dressing an a serving of embellishment. While naltrexone,…
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U.S. Drug overdose deaths are increasing
The second leading cause of accidental death in the US is drug overdose (JAMA 2007). Prescription painkiller overdose deaths (opioid analgesics like OxyContin, Vicodin and methadone) account for nearly half of the 36,450 total fatal overdoses with 15,000 deaths that have claimed a number of celebrity lives including famous actor Heath Ledger (CDC 2011). With…
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Saving lives made easy – Treating opiate overdose with intranasal naloxone
Contributing co-author: Andrew Chen Imagine that you and your friend have been using heroin (or another opiate). A few hours go by and you notice your friend is progressively becoming more and more unresponsive. You check on him and find that his breathing is shallow, his skin is cold, and his pupils are constricted. You…
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About Addiction: Drug Withdrawal in Newborns, Heroin, and Harm Reduction
There’s so much to learn about addiction nowadays – Psychological theories, new stories, neuroscience research, and more. At All About Addiction we try to make the information easy to digest, so when you need to sort of the latest information about addiction, come see us, we’ll help. Harm reduction – Heroin and Injecting Drugs Irish…
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Addiction Treatment Admissions in the United States: Everyone, meet TEDS
Dirk Hanson What a difference a decade makes. Between 1998 and 2008, addiction treatment admissions in the U.S. increased markedly for methamphetamine (crystal meth), prescription opiates, and marijuana. Treatment admissions for alcohol and cocaine declined over the same period, while heroin admissions remained roughly the same. The Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), which the Substance…