The end of 2022 saw a culmination many reforms addiction treatment providers have long fought for, mainly, proposals by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to reform methadone keeping opioid programs (OTPs) in control but making it easier for patients get take‐homes; vast spending bill signed into law President Biden at very year that allows buprenorphine be p...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Extended-release (XR) injection naltrexone has proved promising in the treatment of opioid dependence. Induction onto naltrexone is often accomplished with a procedure known as rapid naltrexone induction. The purpose of this study was to evaluate pre-treatment patient characteristics as predictors of successful completion of a rapid naltrexone induction procedure prior...

The lead article in this issue of Addiction Science & Clinical Practice focuses on the blessing and curse of opioids. Drs. Savage, Kirsh, and Passik offer invaluable practical advice, useful to both substance abuse clinicians and pain specialists, on negotiating the difficult clinical issues that arise as a result of opioids’ gift of powerful analgesia and their bane of addiction. While support...

People who inject drugs are more likely to be HIV positive and to have a mental disorder than the general population. We explore how the detection and treatment of mental illness among people who are injecting drugs are essential to primary and secondary prevention of HIV infection in this population. Aside from opioid addiction, few studies have been conducted on the links between mental disor...

Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP) are statewide databases that collect data on prescription of controlled substances. New York State mandates prescribers to consult the PDMP registry before prescribing a controlled substance such as opioid analgesics. The effect of mandatory PDMP on opioid drug prescriptions by dentists is not known. This study investigates the impact of mandatory PD...

BACKGROUND Individuals with opioid dependence have cognitive deficits during abuse period in attention, working memory, episodic memory, and executive function. After protracted abstinence consistent cognitive deficit has been found only in executive function. However, few studies have explored cognitive function during first weeks of abstinence. The purpose of this study was to study cognitive...

Opioid misuse and its attendant negative consequences remain a public health challenge. This is true among all sectors of the population, and, in U.S., it has impacted adolescent sometimes fatal ways. As result, sector sought mechanisms for preventing opioid misuse, with school-based interventions emerging as one most viable options intervening early effectively. School-based substance use have...

Background: Methadone Maintenance Treatment is a useful method for opioid dependents, which results in harm reduction and increased quality of life in opioid dependents. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders in addicts is higher than in the general population which can interfere with the course and treatment of substance dependents and decrease the efficacy of treatment. Methods: This descrip...