Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 90 results  for your search.  View and Refine Your Search Terms

  • Beyond the Stigma: Optimism on NH's opioid front line

    In New Hampshire, many actors are participating to coordinate solutions to the opioid crisis. Among the most effective solutions are training physicians to help patients manage pain without opiates, helping patients wean off opiates, and maintaining rapid response teams to respond to potential overdoses.

    Read More

  • Prescribing Opioids: How Many Are Too Many?

    Doctors at Johns Hopkins and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School are striving to establish new guidelines that are specific to surgical procedure and patient circumstance for prescribing opioids. The general consensus is this: every patient's needs must be assessed individually, alternatives to opiates should always be considered first, and no patients with acute pain should ever be sent home with more than a few days' worth of opiates.

    Read More

  • Beyond Books: How Libraries Are the Latest Front in the Opioid Fight

    Librarians across the nation are being trained to administer naloxone, a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose. In Denver’s Central Library, 350 staff members were trained to administer the drug. “Libraries in New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Salt Lake County, Utah, among others, are also stocking the overdose reversal drug.”

    Read More

  • The Opioid Solution

    Although the opioid epidemic has spread across America, this story argues that local solutions are needed. In Allentown, when somebody overdoses on opioids, they get a visit from a Blue Guardian, a trained volunteer that connects the individual to treatment. The outreach program also focuses on reaching out to the families of addicts. In 2017, the program aided nearly 1,000 addicts to get treatment.

    Read More

  • Opioid Crisis Compels New York to Look North for Answers

    Supervised injection sites in Canada have prevented hundreds of heroin overdose deaths. Now, New York City is looking to follow Canada's lead with a city-wide initiative to establish safe injection sites. While the Trump Administration is not in support of such sites, experts believe that it is unlikely that the federal government would interfere with a site if a city is in support of it.

    Read More

  • New Hampshire syringe programs: 'Meeting people where they're at'

    Hand Up Health Services is a syringe services program that provides clean needles to addicts, also known as “needles exchange” programs. The program is only one of two in New Hampshire. While there's a lot of stigma behind these types of programs, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions shows that “ people who inject drugs are five times more likely to enter treatment if they connect with an SSP.”

    Read More

  • How safe-injection sites work

    The city of Montreal, Canada is testing how safe injection sites can be used in the fight against opioid overdoses. Montreal has 4 total sites, and one of them, called Cactus Montreal, has already supervised thousands of users in less than a year without a single death. Cactus is often busy with about 100 visitors each day, and they say that their services also prevent public injections and litter of used needles.

    Read More

  • How France Cut Heroin Overdoses by 79 Percent in 4 Years

    In 1995, following high rates of deaths by heroin overdose, France implemented new policies that allowed primary care physicians to prescribe buprenorphine, a drug that helps curb opiate cravings, to patients suffering from opioid addiction, drastically reducing overdose deaths. In the U.S., doctors are required to go through a special addiction training to be able to prescribe buprenorphine, meaning that very few U.S. doctors can prescribe it.

    Read More

  • Could venomous snails be part of the solution to the opioid epidemic?

    Patients who experience chronic pain are commonly prescribed opiates. Over time, their tolerance to the medication builds up and they must increase their dose to maintain the positive effects of opiates, often leading to addiction problems. A neurotoxin found in a venomous sea snail is proving to be more effective in relieving chronic pain because it works better over time and it is non-addictive.

    Read More

  • When tokhang takes your children away

    Community groups and organizations are helping women deal with the deaths of their sons due to a drug war that has killed thousands in the Philippines. One of those organizations is Baigani, which takes family out of town for a family therapy event. “The women share their skills, their strengths, and together, attendees and counsellors, suggest plausible livelihood and jobs that they could take on.”

    Read More