Heroin

Top headlines of the week from Friday, September 23- Thursday, September 29, 2016.

The price of naloxone is increasing at a time when the need for the opioid overdose antidote is growing, CNBC reports.

The U.S. Justice Department is scheduled to meet with American Indian tribal leaders from northern New Mexico about the opioid epidemic, the Associated Press reports.

Seattle is moving ahead with plans to open the nation’s first supervised heroin-injection clinics, the Los Angeles Times reports. The government-supported clinics would allow people addicted to heroin to legally use the drug while being monitored by medical personnel.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, September 16- Thursday, September 22, 2016.

The Obama Administration on Monday announced the launch of Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week. The administration is unveiling a series of new initiatives to fight the epidemic, and is calling on Congress to provide $1.1 billion for the effort.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, September 9- Thursday, September 15, 2016.

Canadian doctors will now be able to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade heroin to treat severe addiction that has not responded to more conventional treatment, The Washington Post reports.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, September 2- Thursday, September 8, 2016.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting a 426 percent increase in seized drugs that tested positive for fentanyl between 2013 and 2014, according to NPR. The number of deaths involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids increased 79 percent during that period.

Appalachia, which has long been dealing with an epidemic of prescription opioid abuse, is now seeing an influx of heroin, The Courier-Journal reports.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, July 22- Thursday, July 28, 2016.

New York City’s immigrant neighborhoods are seeing an increase in heroin and pill overdoses, according to The New York Times.

The number of deaths in the United States involving heroin more than tripled between 2010 and 2014, according to a new report by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The number of people reporting current heroin use nearly tripled between 2007 and 2014, the agency said.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, June 24- Thursday, June 30, 2016.

An estimated one million people used heroin in the United States in 2014, almost triple the 2003 rate, according to a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Heroin-related deaths have increased five-fold since 2000, the World Drug Report 2016 found.

Routinely prescribing naloxone to certain patients who take opioid medications might reduce the number of overdose deaths, a new study suggests.

The head of a Canadian clinic that provides legally prescribed heroin to people addicted to the drug told U.S. senators this week the strategy can reduce the risk of serious illness and premature death, while reducing drug-related crime.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, June 10- Thursday, June 16, 2016.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning Tuesday that taking higher-than-recommended doses of the over-the-counter diarrhea drug loperamide (Imodium) can cause serious heart problems that can lead to death. There have been a growing number of reports of people using the drug to manage their opioid addiction or to get high.

A group of senators is urging the Department of Health and Human Services to raise the number of patients a doctor can treat with the opioid addiction medication buprenorphine to 500, The Huffington Post reports.

A new federally funded program is partnering with police departments and health departments in 17 states in the northeast and beyond to share information quickly to respond to the heroin crisis.

U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio is focusing on the heroin epidemic in his re-election campaign, USA Today reports. His campaign is releasing three ads on Wednesday that highlight the Republican senator’s work on the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, MD, met with Native Americans in Oklahoma to discuss prescription drug abuse and opioid addiction, the Associated Press reports.

Doctors in Philadelphia are reporting cases of heroin overdoses they suspect involve the synthetic opioid W-18. The drug, which can be added to heroin without the user’s knowledge, may be too strong for the overdose antidote naloxone to reverse, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.