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Children: Secondary Victims of the Opioid Crisis
A 10-month-old girl rolled over onto her father’s heroin needle. By the time paramedics arrived, she had turned blue and was unresponsive. She had to be revived with the anti-overdose drug naloxone. Meanwhile, an 8-year-old girl in the same city also required...
read moreOpioid Overdose ER Visits Continue to Climb
The opioid epidemic is getting worse. According to the most recent report issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), emergency room visits associated with opioid overdose increased about 30% across the country, from July 2016 to September...
read moreSuicide and the Opioid Crisis: A Tangled Web
Mady Ohlman stood in a friend’s bathroom looking down at the sink, where she had set up numerous needles filled with heroin. She intended to inject them all. After the first few, she collapsed and lay drugged-out on the floor. The 22-year-old addict later...
read moreU.S. Opioid Crisis and the Racial Divide
In the heartland of America, 12 therapy group members gather at a rehab clinic. They sit quietly, listen, and wait patiently for the opportunity to tell their story. Together they represent a cross-section of the nation’s opioid addicts. They’re young and middle-aged....
read moreExperimental Opioid Court Strives to Save Lives
26-year-old Caitlyn Stein appears before the city court judge shackled in handcuffs and chains. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, and painfully thin, she displays dark circles under her eyes and heroin track marks on her arms. Ten years of crippling intravenous heroin...
read moreDeath Has a New Name: Fentanyl
Back at his Ohio police station following a traffic stop, Officer Chris Green instinctively brushed some white powder off of his shirt. Within minutes, he fell to the floor. “I started talking weird,” Green later reported. “I slowly felt my body shutting down. I could...
read moreIs Portugal Winning the War on Drugs?
On a concrete stoop in Lisbon, Portugal, sits a middle-aged man smoking crack cocaine. His name is Rui. And he’s grateful that the stigma against addicts has eased significantly in his country. "It's less, because the methadone is coming, and people are treating this...
read moreModern-Day Heroines Fighting Overdose Battle
Picturesque Huntington, West Virginia, nestled in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, is now the “overdose capital of America.” In 2015, the incidents of opioid overdose in this historic city were 10 times the national average. The OD rate typically...
read moreDrug Abuse Treatment: What Are the Options?
The United States is in the grip of the worst drug abuse epidemic ever. If you or someone you know are among the estimated 2.1 million Americans suffering from opioid addiction, how do you get help? Fortunately, numerous treatment options are available. But before you...
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