Two days after actor Nelsan Ellis’ death, his family shared the cause of their loss: Nelsan was trying to withdraw from heavy alcohol consumption all on his own.
Drinking alcohol is a past time many people enjoy and it even has some health benefits. However, when abuse of alcohol occurs, it can cause major and irreparable damage to the body and overall health.
Heroin addiction is an extremely dangerous and lethal habit and it is important to help a loved one overcome this addiction. One of the keys to helping them achieve a path to recovery is knowing how to support an addict without enabling them.
You’ve probably heard of fentanyl, the drug that caused so many overdoses deaths, especially in the Midwest, Great Lakes States and Northeast. What most people don’t know is that there are 1400 different forms of this deadly drug.
Methamphetamine is a highly dangerous, addictive, and lethal drug that can cause irreparable damage to the body by destroying the basic cognitive functions and physical health. It is so powerful that it can alter the chemistry of the brain and cause permanent...
While it’s true that addiction is not restricted to any particular social, economic or cultural groups, a study of those who have overdosed could provide a description of those most at risk for this fate.
It was just a grubby, flattened box that had obviously been driven over a hundred times as it lay in the street. But since it had once held a constipation remedy, could it have been a sign of heroin or opioid addiction in the neighborhood?
In Maryland, a recent poll showed that 58% of Marylanders are in favor of legalizing marijuana. Would they feel that way if they realized how many started with marijuana and ended up with deadly overdoses?
Walk into any average-sized middle school or high school classroom in America. You’ll probably be looking at about 25 teenagers. One of those young people has probably already misused cough medicine to get high without realizing the dangers.
A couple of intense news articles in a row raised a question in my mind—is there any good reason to drink alcohol? Is it is a defensible practice? A quick examination of the possible health risks and benefits was revealing.
The young woman was painfully thin, soaking in warm bathtub to relieve the aches of heroin withdrawal. She didn’t understand why her mother had dropped in to see her at college or how her mother knew she was using heroin.
Kratom is a drug imported from Asia, a product manufactured from the leaves of a tree that grows in Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and other parts of Southeast Asia. It was banned in Thailand – but should it be banned in other countries, too?
948,000 people used heroin in 2016, a sharp increase from 404,000 in 2002. More than two million are addicted to the abuse of pain medication. For some people, there’s no difference between these two. If they can’t get one kind of drug, the get the...
Until a few years ago, few people had ever heard of the prescription drug fentanyl. But now, not only is fentanyl popular on the illicit market, but other dangerous drugs from this family are making their way into our supplies of street drugs.
One thing is for sure: There is plenty of confusing information circulating about marijuana. One faction claims it’s harmless and even medicinal. The other faction holds the opinion that this drug is dangerous in many ways. Caught in the middle are our...
A new study has reinforced earlier research that alcohol is associated with increased risk of cancer. While the alcohol-cancer connection has been made before, this study was the first one to associate melanoma (skin cancer) with alcohol intake.
Moon Rocks, which is also known as Spice, K2, Skunk or synthetic marijuana, is a laboratory-produced, dangerous, mind-altering drug substance that has exploded in popularity over the last ten years.
In less than two years, there were more than 4,000 calls to national Poison Control centers that involved K2 abuse. As K2 can cause severe anxiety, aggression, threatening behavior and an inability to speak, more and more young people are turning up in...
The small and beautiful State of Vermont has been struggling with one of the country’s worst heroin and opiate painkiller epidemics. In 2014, Governor Peter Shumlin dedicated his State of the State Address to the growing problem.
If you’re not familiar with it, Suboxone is the brand name of a drug that is used in the treatment of opiate addiction.