With the New Year upon us we have available to us some new figures on prescription drug abuse and heroin addiction. The Centers for Disease Control reports an all-time new high—no pun intended—of overdoses from prescription drug abuse in the United States in 2014. 47,055 to be exact. In light of these startling statistics, some states like Georgia, are taking a proactive approach at preventing ...
Support Grows for Suboxone Programs
When someone like Dr. Marvin D. Seppala speaks up about addiction treatment, people listen. Living in a world in which the possibilities of success with Suboxone programs are questioned, it’s refreshing and promising to hear that Dr. Seppala, who once promoted only abstinence-based therapies, now gives his full support to the benefits of Suboxone or buprenorphine. Dr. Seppala earned his medical ...
Your Responsibilities in Suboxone Therapy
If you’ve decided to seek help for your pain pill or heroin addiction at a medication-assisted treatment center, you may be wondering if you should opt for methadone or Suboxone therapy. While methadone treatment has been accepted for quite some time and the regulations are pretty straightforward, things are a little stricter with Suboxone. Even so, some of the rules are changing a bit. How and ...
Women Who Abuse Opiates: For Them, It’s Different
The image of the typical heroin addict, years ago, did not include women as part of the stereotype. Women who abused opiates just did not happen. The typical heroin user was a long-haired street dwelling man, someone with pale, clammy skin, red-rimmed eyes, and needle marks spiking all the way up and back down their skinny arms. Heroin addicts were teenagers or they were in their early ...
How Are Communities Fighting Opiate Dependence?
President Obama remains more determined than ever to make headway in the fight against opiate dependence and addiction that affects so many people in this country. He addressed current treatment options in a panel discussion that took place in Charleston, West Virginia, where statistics on opiate dependence are higher than anywhere else in the country. The long-ago stereotype of an opiate ...
Prescription Drug Abuse Gets Better, and It Gets Worse
It seems like forever that people in this country have been focused with the growth of opiate prescription drug abuse into epidemic proportions. Many people are asking themselves, won’t this ever go away? Won’t we ever be able to manage this high-profile problem? The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) tells us that while the abuse of opiates has somewhat decreased, the incidence of ...
