Preventing and Treating Narcotic Addiction — A Century of Federal Drug Control Just over a century ago, in March 1915, the Harrison Narcotic Act took effect, requiring anyone who imported, produced, sold, or dispensed “narcotics” (at that time meaning coca- […]

Pain causes widespread suffering, disability, social displacement, and expense. Whether the issue is viewed from a moral, political, or public health perspective, pain that can be relieved should be relieved. Yet the most rapidly effective drugs for relieving pain — […]

A sharp rise in death rates among white middle-aged Americans has claimed nearly as many lives in the past 15 years as the spread of Aids in the US, researchers have said. The alarming trend, overlooked until now, has hit […]

C-SPAN: Dr. Andrew Kolodny talks about the scope of the prescription drug and heroin abuse epidemic and the Obama administration’s efforts to combat it.

The Huffington Post: A quarter of patients given a short-term prescription for painkillers transitioned to long-term use. We know how opioid addictions end: all too often, in death by overdose. About 16,000 Americans every year die of an overdose of […]