addiction

California Governor Orders State Officials To Remove Homeless Encampments

Trump would like to bring back mental institutions, but experts are skeptical

9:00am November 13, 2024

Permanent tent cities are another idea Trump has for dealing with people who are unhoused. Sequestering people with mental illness or substance abuse in one place has been tried, an expert says, and "it turns into hell on earth."

Young women are challenging the stigma of sex and love addiction support groups

5:00am October 30, 2024

On social media, young women are increasingly open about attending 12-step sex and love addiction programs. Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous reports 1,200 meetings in more than 50 countries.

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The hope was that bringing many other services to people with high needs would stabilize their health problems. While the strategy has succeeded sometimes, it hasn't saved money.

Health & Safety

How do you help patients who show up in the ER 100 times a year?

4:34pm May 03, 2024

For decades, nonprofits, health insurers and hospitals have been trying to solve the problem of the people who need the emergency room again and again. Here are some of the lessons they've learned.

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U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken speaks Friday at the 67th Session of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria.

World News

Blinken warns deadly fentanyl crisis will spread globally

1:15pm March 15, 2024

by Brian Mann

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says the U.S. is "a canary in the coal mine" as deadly synthetic street drugs spread.

Drug-related street crime in Portugal has dropped along with overdoses. "There's an impression in the U.S. that if you decriminalize drugs, it's a wild west," said Miguel Moniz at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. "That hasn't been the case in Portugal."

How Portugal eased its opioid epidemic, while U.S. drug deaths skyrocketed

3:31pm February 24, 2024

by Brian Mann

Portugal cut drug deaths by 80%, using free health care and addiction treatment. The U.S., meanwhile, focused on drug busts and tough crime laws. Overdose deaths keep rising catastrophically.

Guillermo A. Santos on his high school graduation day in 2021, with his father, Guillermo Jose Santos. The elder Santos died later the same year of a drug overdose.

In Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood, heroin is far from 'chic'

5:00am February 20, 2024

by Guillermo A. Santos

A young poet and writer who lost his father to opioid addiction says there's nothing cool about what the drugs did to his dad. So why are peers trying to look like emaciated people with addiction?

Matt Capelouto, whose daughter died from a fentanyl overdose, speaks at a news conference outside the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, April 18, 2023. Capelouto is among dozens of protesters who called on the Assembly to hear fentanyl-related bills as tension mounts over how to address the fentanyl crisis. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)

In 2023 fentanyl overdoses ravaged the U.S. and fueled a new culture war fight

2:26pm December 28, 2023

Fentanyl fueled unprecedented carnage with 112,000 fatal overdoses. The nation is increasingly divided over how to respond.

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Louise Vincent has used street drugs since she was 13. She has emerged as a leading voice trying to humanize and help people who use drugs as they face the most devastating overdose crisis in U.S. history.

One woman's controversial fight to make America accept drug users for who they are

7:53am November 19, 2023

by Brian Mann

Louise Vincent has used drugs since she was 13. Research shows millions of Americans like her aren't ready or able to stop. Vincent believes it's time people accept that.

Matthew Perry Foundation launched to help people with drug addiction

6:06pm November 04, 2023

by Chloe Veltman

The Matthew Perry Foundation was launched Friday in honor of the late Friends actor, who struggled with unhealthy substance use for decades.

LaShonda Jefferson (left), a community health educator, talks with a woman who drops off used needles into a bin on the van.

Health & Safety

Caring for people with fentanyl addiction often means treating terrible wounds

9:50am August 13, 2023

by Scott Maucione

The fentanyl-additive Xylazine causes open wounds, making the illegal drug supply even more dangerous and treatment more complicated