addiction

Health & Safety

Addiction drug maker will pay more than $102 million fine for stifling competition

3:15pm June 02, 2023

by Brian Mann

Indivior was accused of using illegal strategies to keep generic versions of the opioid-treatment medication Suboxone off the market. The company denies wrongdoing.

Autumn Hendry moved into the Nesting Place maternity home after she became pregnant, but she wasn't allowed to stay after she began using meth and alcohol again.

Maternity homes provide support in a post-Roe world, but not without conditions

4:07pm May 09, 2023

by Katia Riddle

A crisis pregnancy center in Idaho opened a maternity home in the months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The residents have more complicated stories than the home's founders expected.

Registered nurse Jamie Simmons speaks with a patient during an appointment at the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center in Massachusetts. The patient, whose first name is Kim, says buprenorphine has helped her stay off heroin and avoid an overdose for nearly 20 years.

Health & Safety

A roadblock to life-saving addiction treatment is gone. Now what?

4:37pm March 09, 2023

by Martha Bebinger

Federal restrictions seemed to explain why many doctors weren't prescribing medication for opioid addiction. But some caution that removing those rules isn't enough to overcome hesitancy and stigma.

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A sign calling attention to drug overdoses is posted in a gas station on the White Earth reservation in Ogema, Minn.. A new study shows that early deaths due to addiction and suicide have impacted American Indian and Alaska Native communities far more than white communities.

Native Americans left out of 'deaths of despair' research

5:00am February 01, 2023

by Rhitu Chatterjee

During the time that deaths from addiction and suicide among white Americans rose by about 9%, deaths among Native Americans shot up by about 30%, a new study shows.

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Health & Safety

CDC weighs new opioid prescribing guidelines amid controversy over old ones

11:01am April 09, 2022

by Will Stone

Many blame the agency's earlier guidance for suffering and even suicide risk among chronic pain patients. Critics say the updated advice may not fix the problem.

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A heroin user in a South Bronx neighborhood which is experiencing an epidemic in drug use, especially heroin and other opioid based drugs.

Health & Safety

Black Americans are now dying from drug overdoses at a higher rate than whites

2:15pm March 02, 2022

by Brian Mann

New research shows drug overdose deaths continue to surge among Black Americans. For the first time since 1999, Black Americans are dying at a higher rate per capita than white Americans.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said the overdose epidemic has grown so severe that new measures are needed to keep people with addiction alive. He is seen here on Capitol Hill in September.

National

Overdose deaths are so high that the Biden team is embracing ideas once seen as taboo

3:31pm October 27, 2021

by Brian Mann

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told NPR the U.S. has to do more to help people using illegal drugs survive. "If we want to keep people alive we've got to try everything the evidence says might work."

Evidence seized from a drug trafficking operation in central California in early 2020 included methamphetamine and fentanyl with a street value of $1.5 million, authorities said.

Methamphetamine Deaths Soar, Hitting Black And Native Americans Especially Hard

5:08pm September 22, 2021

by Brian Mann

Newly published U.S. data finds overdose deaths from methamphetamine use more than doubled in recent years. Use of the stimulant among Black Americans surged nearly tenfold.

Artificial intelligence brain by particle form.

In 'Dopamine Nation,' Overabundance Keeps Us Craving More

2:34pm August 25, 2021

by Terry Gross

Psychiatrist Anna Lembke's new book explores the brain's connection between pleasure and pain. It also helps explain addictions — not just to drugs and alcohol, but also to food, sex and smartphones.

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Jameson Rybak, son of Jim and Suzanne Rybak of Florence, S.C., struggled with opioid addiction and died of an overdose on June 9, 2020 — three months after he left a hospital ER because he feared he couldn't afford treatment.

A Tragic Death Shows How ERs Fail Patients Who Struggle With Addiction

11:00am July 14, 2021

by Aneri Pattani

ER doctors wanted to hospitalize the young man to help ease his withdrawal from opioid dependence. But he declined because he couldn't afford it. His mom says no one told him he had financial options.