It’s a well-known and established fact that a high percentage of street cocaine is laced with levamisole, a veterinary drug used to deworm animals. It’s not just odd: it can be deadly, literally eating the flesh of those who use it. In fact, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported that 82 percent of the cocaine it…
Categorized: Drug Policy
By Christa Banister If it’s truly insanity to try something the same way again and again and again and hope for a different result, it appears that a handful of drug courts are determined to buck that cliché with how they respond to the opioid crisis. Recently declared a national public health emergency under federal…
By Jenni Deming Opioid addiction has a familiar face. It has the eyes of the retired grandmother next door. It has the smile of the bag boy at your local grocery store. And it has the ears, nose and skin of the lawyer, nurse and social worker you’ve known since childhood. Maybe it even has…
Although we face many cultural issues today, addiction is surely among the most pressing. It’s a destructive, deadly disease that affects all sections of the population to some degree, which is why combating addiction remains a top priority of public officials and researchers alike. Lately, there’s been much discussion about risk factors for addiction. Through…
One of the most concerning issues we fact in the United States is the opioid epidemic. For the past two decades, millions of Americans have become addicted to prescription painkillers and heroin. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of annual overdose deaths caused by prescription painkillers has seen a 2.8-fold increase…
The American Medical Association now recognizes alcoholism (alcohol use disorder) and substance addiction (substance use disorder) as “diseases,” which forces health insurance companies to acknowledge the need to cover treatment for these conditions. Drug and alcohol treatment can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be out of reach. Many people question how to afford…
