This Week's News in Substance Use: 2/24/17

Downward spiral: How addiction decimated a Wyoming Family, The Guardian

"The state's suicide rate is three times the national average and 16% of its people experience alcoholism and addiction....In the second least populated state in the US, mental healthcare can be hard to come by."

How can parents help their children with opioid addiction, Buffalo News

"Family members often think that it is only the addict that needs to start changing, but it is really about the dynamics in families, how people communicate, the respect, the understanding....It is so important to work with everyone in the family."

Medical, dental schools encouraged to implement opioid prescription training, CI Proud

"U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) is encouraging medical and dental schools to work with the Drug Enforcement Administration to teach students about responsibly prescribing opioids to patients."

State lawmakers channel grief into fight against opioids, U.S. News & World Report

"In statehouses across the country, lawmakers with loved ones who fell victim to drugs are leading the fight against the nation's deadly opioid-abuse crisis, drawing on tragic personal experience to attack the problem."

Gutting Obamacare would leave 3 million Americans without drug treatment, Mother Jones

"What has health advocates particularly worried is that the states with the highest overdose rates also rely the most on Obamacare. West Virginia, New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Massachusetts, have the first, second, third, and seventh highest overdose rates in the country, respectively, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of uninsured residents in those four states would roughly triple if the ACA were repealed."

The opioid crisis: Why it's getting worse, The Stream

"While the opioid crisis has developed over 15 years, heroin use has especially skyrocketed since 2010. The heroin epidemic was likely birthed by addiction to prescription opioids. About 80 percent of users were previous prescription drug users as of 2011, according to the CDC."

Scientists looking at the potential of marijuana to treat opioid addiction, WQAD

"The review examined multiple studies and found that states that had legalized marijuana reported a reduction in opioid use. Further, these states also reported fewer prescriptions for opioid painkillers, a lower number of opioid overdoses than states without medical marijuana and reported fewer opioid-involved car fatalities."

How doctors are fueling the opioid epidemic, Time 

"In a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Barnett and his team found that doctors, indeed, have a lot to do with who starts chronically taking opioids. And which doctor you happen to see may help determine whether or not you develop a habit."