opiods

Dr. Alexis LaPietra (left) and Dr. Mark Rosenberg have developed a program that tries to treat emergency room patients' pain without using opioids, which pose fatal risks.

Health & Safety

No Joke: N.J. Hospital Uses Laughing Gas To Cut Down On Opioid Use

6:06am April 02, 2016

by Hansi Lo Wang

Physicians at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center say they hope treating ER patients with alternatives to opioid painkillers will serve as a model for cutting down on opioid abuse nationwide.

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Dr. Jessie Gaeta, chief medical officer of Health Care for the Homeless at Boston Medical Center, stands in a conference room that will soon be converted to a place where patients high on heroin or other drugs can be safely monitored.

Boston's Heroin Users Will Soon Get A Safer Place To Be High

9:58am March 01, 2016

by Martha Bebinger

Set to open within a few weeks, the room will not be a place to inject drugs or get high, say health providers. Instead, a nurse will monitor heroin users as they come down from the drug's effects.

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"The people that I know who have lost spouses, children, some of them are so ashamed that they wouldn't even acknowledge it as a cause of death," says A. Thomas McLellan, co-founder of the Treatment Research Institute.

Treating Addiction As A Chronic Disease

4:26pm February 25, 2016

by NPR Staff

Reframing addiction as a chronic illness would help people get appropriate treatment and benefit the health care system, says A. Thomas McLellan, co-founder of the Treatment Research Institute.

Anatomy Of Addiction: How Heroin And Opioids Hijack The Brain

7:15pm January 11, 2016

by Jack Rodolico

Roughly 2.5 million Americans are addicted to heroin and opioids like Oxycontin. Researchers say addiction takes over the brain's limbic reward system, impairing decision making, judgment and memory.

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Sales of prescription opioid painkillers have quadrupled since 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Maine Bill Aims To Make Abuse-Deterrent Painkillers More Affordable

7:17pm May 20, 2015

by Patty Wight

Expensive versions of prescription opioids that are tougher to cut, crush and inject are less likely to be abused, legislators hope. But some doctors call the bill well-meant, but ill-advised.

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Number of providers by state who wrote at least 3,000 prescriptions for Schedule 2 controlled substances in 2012 in Medicare Part D.

Health & Safety

Prolific Prescribers Of Controlled Substances Face Medicare Scrutiny

4:11pm January 04, 2015

In the face of abuse concerns, Medicare covered more prescriptions for potent controlled substances in 2012 than in 2011. Top prescribers often have faced disciplinary action or criminal charges.

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