California’s Proposition 64 – legalization of recreational marijuana – is on the ballot this November and the most recent polls reveal solid voter support for the measure. While law enforcement officials in the state have been outspoken in their stance against prop 64, some agencies […]
Category: Drug Addiction
Canada Legalizes Heroin and Extends Operation of Safe Injection Sites
Scott MacDonald is the lead physician at Crosstown Clinic, a Vancouver, British Columbia medical facility that opened in 2005 to conduct trials of prescription heroin. MacDonald has worked with 52 patients, though that number is expected to double now that the Canadian government, under Prime […]
Deadly New Drug: U-47700 aka U4, Pink or Pinky
Another technically “legal” substance has been added to the wave of synthetic, or so called “research drugs,” that skirt state and federal law by slightly altering the molecular makeup. Known on the streets as U4, Pink or Pinky, U-47700 is a synthetic opioid 50 times […]
Silk Road May Be Gone, But Online Drug Crypto Markets Still Exist
In the darker recesses of the internet, at unlisted web addresses the vast majority of the population doesn’t even know exist, a bustling trade in illicit goods thrives. Here people can order almost anything to be delivered to their homes – forged identity papers, stolen […]
Cocaine Vaccine Advances to Phase 1 Human Trials
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College received approval earlier this year to begin human trials on a cocaine vaccination. Authorization for Phase 1 of the trials, which are expected to last about three years, came after researchers demonstrated that their drug intercepts the powerful stimulant […]
Carfentanil Sedates Elephants. Why is it Showing Up in Heroin?
Last month in Ohio, a state long considered the ideal of Midwest American values, 96 people overdosed on heroin in the span of a few days. Like every other state in the country, Ohio battles its share of the opioid epidemic, but this week stood […]
Personalized Medicine for Addiction – The Future of Health Part I
The Human Genome Project was completed almost 20 years ago by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Department of Energy and mapped the 3 billion units of DNA that make up the human genome. Such an enormous undertaking took scientists more than […]
The Cover-Up of the Corporate Prescription Drug Cartel
Just one year after executives at Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, pleaded guilty in federal court and paid $635 million in fines for misleading doctors about the addictive properties of its bestselling painkiller, a tiny medical clinic opened near the Los Angeles neighborhood of […]
Drug Smuggling and Fatal Overdoses in California Prisons
Since late 2014, when the California Department of Corrections launched a statewide program to end the flourishing market for illegal drugs in its penitentiaries, drug use has actually increased. The $8 million plan, which included the purchase of drug-detecting scanners and drug-sniffing dogs, was put […]
Buprenorphine + Naloxone and the Black Market
For the estimated 2.2 million Americans suffering an addiction to prescription painkillers or heroin, federal regulations have it made it difficult to get legal access to a medication that can save their lives. Buprenorphine + Naloxone ease the physically painful squeeze of opiate addiction when […]