OPIOIDS

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Deaths from Drugs, Alcohol, and Suicide at All-Time Highs

Dying is just a part of the life cycle. But the circumstances under which people die can be significant, especially when avoidable. Death rates from drugs, alcohol, and suicide are at all-time highs. These death rates are higher than they ever have been...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

The Connection between Binge Drinking and Opioid Use

In a concerning research paper published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it was found that more than half of the 4.2 million people in the United States who misused prescription opioids between 2012 and 2014 also struggled with binge...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Excessive Dental Opioid Prescribing an Anomaly in the U.S.

It is safe to say that treating oral pain problems is something that dentists often have to do. But how they go about treating such symptoms is another matter entirely.

STATISTICS & TRENDS

The Connection between the FDA, Pharmaceutical Companies, and Addiction

One of the most common questions I hear regarding addiction is, “How did the addiction epidemic get so bad?” And I can see why people ask this.

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Opioid Prescribing to Young People Still Ongoing

For years, finding data on young adult and adolescent opioid prescribing was more akin to a deep sea treasure hunt than a cursory scan of the internet. There just wasn’t a lot of information out there. But now that’s changing. People are becoming more...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

How Might Doctors Refocus Post-Operation Opioid Prescribing?

Opioid addiction is the most discussed, most concerning, and most lethal drug addiction problem in the United States today. News of opioid dependence hits media headlines weekly. It is a national public health emergency that threatens the very viability...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Treating Pain While Avoiding Addiction—How Can We Help Pain Patients and Also Reduce Opioid Consumption?

An article in the Washington Post from early April 2019 focuses on Kirsten Gillibrand, a Senator from New York and a possible contender for the presidential candidacy in 2020. The article discusses Gillibrand’s efforts to curb the opioid crisis and the...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

How Opioid Pain Reliever Drugs Changed the Drug Addiction Scene

When we work to address the current drug addiction epidemic that has swept our country, we must accept a universal truth. The truth is that the mass introduction of opioid pharmaceuticals (and other addictive pharmaceuticals, for that matter) onto the...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

The Opioid Update

Just about every day when I turn on the news, I see some update or media clip regarding the opioid addiction epidemic. Everywhere we look, opioid addiction disrupts our civilization and stains our communities with its toxic hold on millions of Americans....

STATISTICS & TRENDS

The East Coast Suffers under the Weight of Opioid Addiction

The United States has suffered for nigh on two decades with an opioid crisis. It is a sweeping addiction epidemic that has torn millions of families and individual lives apart. Widely publicized as the worst addiction-related epidemic in the history of...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Advertising Addiction: How Modern-Day Marketing Makes Good People into Addicts

How Modern-Day Marketing Makes Good People into Addicts The United States is a unique country in a lot of ways. We are the land of the free, the home of the brave. But there is one area in which we are quite trapped.

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Meth Surge Now Rivals Opioids for National Headlines

Most of the headlines I see on America’s addiction crisis are related to the opioid epidemic, and rightly so. Opiates account for a significant portion of our nation's drug crisis. But it’s not the only drug to be aware of.

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Michigan’s Drug Problem and What a New Grant Could Do to Stem the Tide of Addiction

Throughout our history, the individual states of the United States of America have gone through their ups and downs. Sometimes these issues have mirrored what was going on in the country at large, and sometimes they were unique to the state.

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Three Countries and Their Drug Problems

We hear on the news these days that the U.S. struggles with an “opioid epidemic,” “an addiction crisis,” or a “national public health emergency.” All of this is true. But what we don’t hear about are the addiction struggles of other countries.

STATISTICS & TRENDS

New Study Finds that Fentanyl Is Grossly Overprescribed

The term “over-prescribing” is one we hear with frequency today. Over-prescribing is a phenomenon where a doctor administers a prescription for too much of a drug. Such can manifest by a doctor giving a patient a medicine for too long…

STATISTICS & TRENDS

2019: Caring for Women Must Include Reversing Losses to Overdoses

Ensuring that women in the United States and around the world receive equal protection must also include reversing our current radical increases in female overdose deaths.

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Curtailing Prescription Opioid Misuse Won’t Be Enough to Stop the Opioid Epidemic

When we as a nation face a significant problem or threat that we struggle to resolve, we tend to err in one of two ways. Either we become overwhelmed by the issue as a whole, feeling more or less incapable in addressing it, or we get too focused in on...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Opioid Overdoses on the Rise Once Again amongst Youth

Our teens face various struggles, challenges and seemingly difficult situations that come with the overall experience of growing up. We’ve all been there, and we’ve probably seen these struggles mirrored in the faces of our own teen children and our...

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Criminal Prosecution For Drug Crimes Should Result in Drug Rehabilitation—Not Jail

There was a recent article in the Washington Post which caught my eye. The report was about county prosecutor candidates competing for votes in Virginia. The article discussed the layered nuances of criminality and drug use.

STATISTICS & TRENDS

Synthetic Opioids — The Drugs Responsible for Most of the Overdose Deaths in 2017

The U.S. struggles in the grip of an opioid crisis—perhaps the worst addiction epidemic that our nation has ever seen. And in the last few years, a new strain of opioids has entered the scene, creating a surge in the addiction crisis and a resulting...