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Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in nonmedical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl. Physicians like me have seen a rise in unintentional fentanyl use from people buying prescription opioids and other drugs laced, or adulterated, with fentanyl. Heroin users in my community in Massachusetts came to realize that fentanyl had entered the drug supply when overdose numbers exploded. In 2016, my colleagues and I found that patients who came to the emergency department reporting a heroin overdose often only had fentanyl present in their...

San Francisco’s mayor plans to put medical teams on the streets to distribute a drug that curbs heroin cravings in opioid addicts, an initiative he says will be the first in the country. Mayor Mark Farrell announced Thursday he will allocate $6 million for 10 new public health clinicians to provide the opioid treatment medicine buprenorphine, known as Suboxone, directly to users. Buprenorphine is a daily pill or dissolvable strip that reduces cravings and alleviates withdrawal symptoms. It also reduces risk of overdose. Video and photos of people shooting up drugs in public have gone viral in recent weeks and...

U.S. health officials on Thursday approved the first injectable form of the leading medication to treat patients recovering from addiction to heroin, prescription painkillers and other opioids. The Food and Drug Administration approved once-a-month Sublocade for adults with opioid use disorder who are already stabilized on addiction medication. The monthly injection has the potential to reduce dangerous relapses that occur when patients stop taking the currently available daily medication. But that benefit has not yet been shown in studies and the new drug comes with a hefty price: $1,580 per monthly dose. The older version of the drug, Suboxone, costs...

Just when you thought the campaigns coming out of George Soros’ Open Society Institute couldn’t push the envelope any further, the Soros backed institute topped itself. OSI reportedly just released a new comic book titled Methadone Man and Buprenorphine Babe — which encourages drug addicts to use Methadone and Buprenorphine to combat heroin and other opioid drug withdrawals and even to fight HIV.

When Aaron, a 33-year-old writer from New York, decided to get help for his five-year addiction to painkillers, there was really only one option. Every morning, he visited a local clinic for a small cup of methadone, the standard treatment for addiction to heroin and other opiates since the 1960's. But his life soon revolved around the clinic's hours, he said, and the daily routine was humiliating. "I had to stand in line with a bunch of people who were talking about getting high," and take a urine test for illicit drugs each week, said Aaron, who spoke on the...

The word's out on the street. People addicted to heroin or prescription painkillers are passing the word. There's a new treatment where you don't have to go through such a miserable withdrawal. It sounds too good to be true. Some are calling it a "miracle drug."...(snip) "The vast majority of patients - especially if they've been through withdrawal before - expect four days of hell," says Dr. Rick Caesar, Serenity Lane's medical co-director. Over the last two months, he has treated close to 30 patients using the new drug. After going through withdrawal with it, he says, most "can't believe...