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Having opioid withdrawal symptoms increases the odds that injection drug users will share needles or have a non-fatal overdose, new research suggests. For the study, the researchers questioned more than 800 injection drug users in San Francisco and Los Angeles. "Withdrawal is one of the main chronic health challenges for this population, and we need to be intervening on it," said lead author Ricky Bluthenthal. He's associate dean for social justice at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, in Los Angeles. An average 130 people a day die in the United States from an opioid overdose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Needle sharing increases a person's risk of infections such as HIV and hepatitis, as well as other serious health problems, the CDC says.

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As people across the U.S. and the rest of the world contend with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the research community should be alert to the possibility that it could hit some populations with substance use disorders (SUDs) particularly hard. People with opioid use disorder (OUD) and methamphetamine use disorder may also be vulnerable due to those drugs’ effects on respiratory and pulmonary health.

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Source: NIDA. (2020, March 12). COVID-19: Potential Implications for Individuals with Substance Use Disorders. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2020/03/covid-19-potential-implications-individuals-substance-use-disorders on 2020, March 20

Stay updated at the National Institute on Drug Abuse on the latest news about COVID-19.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/comorbidity/covid-19-resources

“Don’t be a drug dealer!” warned a flier distributed to seniors over the past month. The flier advocated safe disposal for expired and unused drugs and promoted a collection event, which collected and safely disposed more than 22 pounds of pills at three senior centers in Oxnard. To combat the problem of seniors unwittingly contributing to the opioid addiction epidemic by storing unused and expired medications in places accessible to friends, family, workers, intruders or just curious children, Eastlake obtained a grant to fund the Senior Volunteer Program, which includes the drug collection program. Using additional funds and assistance provided by the Ventura County Behavioral Health Department, Eastlake is also overseeing additional efforts by STOP, an acronym for Seniors Tackling the Opioid Problem.

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More Ventura County drug abusers are overdosing on pills that look like real medications but are often spiked with a lethally potent synthetic opioid, according to authorities. While the overall number of overdoses appears to be holding steady, authorities are seeing a lower proportion from the street forms of drugs that are injected or smoked, according to the Ventura County Pharmaceutical Crimes Unit. Instead, the trend since the last quarter of 2019 is toward look-alikes of commonly abused prescription pills.

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