Category Archives: News

Feb 01 2018

The Influence

Philadelphia considering supervised injection sites for addicts

Philadelphia, the city with the highest opiate death rate in the country, wants to become the first U.S. city to allow supervised drug injection sites for opiate addicts, city officials announced last week. Safe injection sites are locations where people can inject drugs under the supervision of a d...

Jan 19 2018

The Influence

NAATP launches treatment outcomes study

The National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers (NAATP) has begun gathering data for its new outcomes research pilot project, from nine participating treatment centers across the U.S. The NAATP study will be the first to combine data from nonprofit and for-profit centers with the same prot...

Jan 17 2018

The Influence

WHO adds excessive video gaming to list of addictive behaviors

Given the popularity of video gaming among adolescents and young adults, it’s no surprise that some people may over-do the activity, spending unhealthy amounts of time playing the games and displaying the signs of addictive behavior. Accordingly, the World Health Organization has added it to i...

Jan 10 2018

The Influence

Miami/Dade courts’ diversion program starts national reform movement

One of the biggest challenges for criminal justice agencies across the U.S. has been a tidal wave of mentally ill defendants who are jailed because of a lack of treatment resources. A judge in Miami-Dade County, Fla. – which has the country’s highest concentration of mentally ill residents – h...

Jan 10 2018

The Influence

FDA approves self-tracking digital pill

In November, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its-kind “digital pill” researchers say could be used to help prevent patients from becoming addicted to prescription opiates. Abilify MyCite (aripiprazole tablets with sensor) has an ingestible sensor embedded in the pill that r...

Jan 10 2018

The Influence

A & E’s “Intervention” takes new approach for 18th season

On Tuesday night, Jan. 2, the A&E Network’s documentary series “Intervention” started its 18th season with a new approach. While previous segments of the show have focused on individual addicts (or alcoholics) and their families, the new season will tell the interrelated stories of people ...

Jan 08 2018

The Influence

Implants: a new way to deliver medication-assisted treatment

In recent years, subcutaneous (under the skin) implantable devices have been developed to deliver a number of medications for various health conditions, in a sustained release method. One of the newest implant applications is treatment of addiction and alcoholism. Implantable drug delivery devices o...

Jan 08 2018

The Influence

Study says OTC pain meds more effective than opioids

As the over prescribing of opioid pain medications has become a major public health concern, health care providers have been paying more attention to over-the counter-drugs that could be used instead, without the risk of addiction. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Associa...

Jan 02 2018

The Influence

Researchers trying medication-assisted treatment for meth addiction

Certain FDA-approved medications already on the market could be used to help methamphetamine users to break free from one of the most addictive of all illicit drugs, according to University of Florida neuroscientists. Currently, there are no market-approved medications being used to treat meth addic...

Jan 02 2018

The Influence

Researchers: media overlooks increase in overdose death among blacks

While lawmakers and other officials strive to keep up with rapidly evolving drug-use trends, racial discrimination still plays a major role in drug policy making. That’s one of the conclusions of a newly released study of comparing data on drug overdose deaths among African-Americans, Hispanic...

Dec 27 2017

The Influence

New nonprofit extends ‘Gloucester model’ across the U.S.

Police departments in Massachusetts are getting some extra help to deal with the opiate addiction epidemic. In October, the Gloucester-based Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative (PAARI) launched an effort to place 20 part-time recovery coaches and five full-time program coordinators wit...

Dec 27 2017

The Influence

House, Senate OK funding for drug-I.D. tech

A bill to equip U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) personnel with scanning devices and other technology to detect synthetic opioids like fentanyl has been passed by the U.S. House and Senate and sent to President Trump for his signature. The Senate version of the INTERDICT (International Narcotics...

Dec 27 2017

The Influence

Insurers announce new anti-opiate measures

Two of the nation’s largest health-insurers, Aetna and CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, have announced new initiatives aimed at containing the opiate epidemic. Effective January 1, Aetna will become the first national payer to waive copays for Narcan for its fully-insured commercial members, ...

Dec 20 2017

The Influence

Congress probes unethical treatment provider practices

One of the side-effects of the opiate epidemic in the U.S. has been an increase in illicit practices by non-certified treatment providers hoping to profit from the large numbers of people needing treatment. Earlier this month, a Congressional committee heard testimony on the problems and what some s...

Dec 20 2017

The Influence

Scientists working to develop ‘safe’ alcohol

A British psychiatrist and addiction specialist has developed a new synthetic alcohol (alcosynth) he says can deliver most of the enjoyable effects of alcohol, without hangovers or any of the other, negative consequences of over-use. David Nutt, who teaches at Imperial College London in the UK, hope...

Dec 15 2017

The Influence

Teens’ smartphone addiction can alter brain structure, researchers find

Parents concerned that their teenagers’ addiction to their smart phones might cause problems have some cause for worry, according to a newly released study by Korean researchers. The scientists concluded that too much time spent online can cause an imbalance in adolescents’ brain chemist...

Dec 15 2017

The Influence

FDA approves new monthly medication for addiction

People who are receiving medication-assisted treatment for opiate addiction now have a new option. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first, once-monthly injectable buprenorphine formulation for opioid use disorder. Sublocade is expected to be available in the United States...

Dec 15 2017

The Influence

Seattle moving closer to opening two safe injection sites

The city of Seattle is moving closer to opening the first two supervised injection sites for IV drug users in the U.S., after a Superior Court judge struck down an effort to block them. The King County (WA) Health Department and County Board of Supervisors had voted in January to open the sites. The...

Dec 13 2017

The Influence

NAATP working on new guidelines for treatment provider quality

How can you judge the quality of an addiction treatment provider? Data on addiction treatment outcomes has always been difficult to gather, for several reasons. And the increase in drug addiction caused by opiates has attracted a number of new treatment providers into the field. According to industr...

Dec 13 2017

The Influence

Ibogaine offers hope — and hazards — to addicts

Among scientists and others interested in possible cures for drug addiction, one hotly debated topic has been the merits and dangers of ibogaine, a psychedelic compound found in the Tabernanthe iboga root, native to western Central Africa. Recovered addicts, and a few scientists, contend that ibogai...

Dec 11 2017

The Influence

Maryland counties planning needle exchanges for drug users

Six counties in Maryland are planning, or considering needle exchange programs for drug users, as a way to reduce the spread of infectious diseases. Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Frederick, Prince George’s and Washington counties “are continuing to move through the process of launching syringe serv...

Dec 08 2017

The Influence

Researchers announce new drug screening method

Canadian researchers have developed a new drug screening technique that could enable the rapid and accurate identification of fentanyl, along with many other illicit drugs which have been difficult to detect by urinalysis. The method developed at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., would also exp...

Dec 08 2017

The Influence

FDA issues new warning about kratom

During the current opiate addiction epidemic, kratom, a plant from Southeast Asia, has grown in popularity as a safer alternative to opioids to treat conditions such as pain, anxiety and depression. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently warned that those who use the plant-based su...

Dec 06 2017

The Influence

Telemedicine extending addiction treatment providers’ reach

In the current epidemic of opiate addiction, one of the challenges in providing treatment to people who need it has been a matter of geography: many people in rural areas and small towns do not have proximity to treatment programs. One high tech solution to this problem is telemedicine, using online...

Dec 04 2017

The Influence

Low insurance payments hurting access to addiction, mental health services, study finds

Low reimbursement payments to mental health and addiction treatment providers is preventing fair access to those services for many patients, according to a new report from Milliman, Inc., a Seattle-based, actuarial consulting firm. As a result, more patients are being forced into expensive, out-of-n...

Dec 04 2017

The Influence

New report projects 60 percent rise in drug and alcohol deaths, suicides

Based on recent trends, about 1.6 million people in the U.S. will die from drugs, alcohol and suicides during the next 10 years (2015 to 2025), a new report projects. That represents a 60 percent increase over the roughly 1 million who died from those causes during the previous decade. However, thos...

Dec 01 2017

The Influence

Should courts jail people for having the disease of addiction?

Is it unconstitutional to put an addict in jail for using drugs? The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is considering that question, in the case of an Acton, Mass. woman whose decade-long struggle with opiate addiction led to relapse – a violation of her probation on a 2016 theft charge. Julie El...

Nov 30 2017

The Influence

New Buffalo drug court fast-tracks addicts into treatment

For nearly three decades, drug courts across the U.S. have provided an effective alternative to jail, by diverting addicted, non-violent defendants into treatment and, ideally, recovery. Now, the city of Buffalo, N.Y., has developed the first opiate-specific drug court, which expedites addicts into ...

Nov 29 2017

The Influence

Opiate epidemic cost U.S. $504 billion in 2015, new report says

The nationwide opioid epidemic cost the American economy $504 billion in 2015, more than six times a previous estimate, according to a new report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). That is the equivalent of 2.8 percent of the gross domestic product that year, the report says. A...

Nov 27 2017

The Influence

Better treatments needed for opiate-addicted newborns, researchers say

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a new study to analyze treatment options for newborns with opioid withdrawal syndrome. While states have been reporting more cases of the syndrome, the NIH says health care providers in the United States lack standard, evidence-based treatments for ...