The opioid epidemic has plagued the United States since the 1990s. However, it has not remained the same but has been marked by three distinctive waves. The first wave involved prescription opioids and related overdoses. In the second wave, beginning around 2010, we saw a dramatic increase in heroin use and overdoses. The third wave…
Most people acquire prescription drugs legally from their doctor for legitimate reasons, take them as prescribed, and stop taking them when no longer needed. However, many people begin to misuse them for their psychoactive effects. The misuse of prescription drugs involves taking them other than how they were explicitly prescribed. The most commonly abused prescription…
As the opioid epidemic continues to ravage our nation, the number of overdoses and deaths related to fentanyl has reached record-breaking levels. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there were nearly 92,000 deaths from overdose in 2020, 21,000 more than ever before. By June of 2021, synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, were involved in…
Even after years of synthetic opioids and dangerous new designer drugs, heroin remains one of the most addictive substances known to modern medical science. This highly potent painkiller is derived from the same opium poppy that gave us morphine and other medically useful compounds. But heroin works quickly to hijack the chemical reward system in…