WTF?! Since the dawn of video games, concerned parents have worried about their kids becoming addicted. Thanks to the advent of the internet and streaming platforms like Twitch, gaming is more popular today than ever before, but does that mean children are more at risk? One UK couple would likely agree, after their nine-year-old daughter was put into rehab to address her addiction to Fortnite.

Poop studies are helping communities make intervention decisions

Episode 1 of Narcotica is here! In the first segment Zachary Siegel does some mythbusting around overdosing by touching fentanyl; Troy Farah gives a nuanced take on what's driving the overdose crisis;

Just don’t quit entirely, okay?

By your early forties, the best part about going to bed is imagining the coffee you’re going to drink in the morning.

It was the question that struck many Australians as they read about the bizarre case of Queensland's so-called 'poo jogger' this week - why?

Two new studies support this correlation

What opioid addiction treatments are more effective and can we vaccinate against addiction?

In the midst of a national crisis, mothers addicted to drugs struggle to get off them — for their babies’ sake, and their own.

The scale and darkness of this epidemic is a sign of a civilization in a more acute crisis than we knew. This nation pioneered modern life. Now epic numbers of Americans are killing themselves with opioids to escape it.

The scale and darkness of this epidemic is a sign of a civilization in a more acute crisis than we knew. By Andrew Sullivan.

You can't overdose on the opioid just by touching it.

Drug users don't take heroin because of postindustrial despair — they do it because withdrawal feels worse than anything you can imagine.

Amid the opioid crisis, the concept of “pain acceptance” is gaining credibility.

America’s social hierarchies rule everything – even the opioid epidemic. You don’t have to dig deep to find the hypocrisy and insult to people of color.

For six days in Portsmouth, Ohio, I keep trying to fool myself. Eventually, I am unable to just watch and listen. By Chris Arnade.

Selling wine and beer next to food ‘normalises’ a dangerous drug and should be sold at specific outlets

Trump finally declared mass opioid addiction a national emergency. But he won’t take on big pharma and the social roots of the crisis.

The effect of heroin has been described as “a warm blanket on the brain”. Within seconds of the drug entering the bloodstream, it hits receptor molecules in the brain’s neurons that induce a surge of euphoria, followed by a prolonged sense of tranquillity. Yes, it feels good – and that’s the problem. But what if you took heroin and felt nothing? What if there was a treatment that cancelled its effects on the brain? Who then would bother to take it?

Results from the Guttman scale indicated that alcohol represented the “gateway” drug, leading to the use of tobacco, marijuana, and other illicit substances. Moreover, students who used alcohol exhibited a significantly greater likelihood of using both licit and illicit drugs. The findings from this investigation support that alcohol should receive primary attention in school-based substance abuse prevention programming, as the use of other substances could be impacted by delaying or preventing alcohol use.

A Hungarian-born Canadian physician, Dr. Gabor Maté specializes in the study and treatment of addiction and trauma. He is well known for his firmly held belief in the connection between mind and body health. Dr. Maté’s bestselling books include the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. Rather than offering quick-fix solutions to complex issues, Dr. Maté weaves together scientific research, case histories and his own insights to present a broad perspective.

Portugal treats addiction as a disease, not a crime.

The Stranglers

Poker machines use a range of design features that leverage psychology to keep people playing. Here, we break them down so you can see exactly how they work, and how it affects people.

“It is perhaps the defining feature of someone my age and from my state to have a friend, sibling, or cousin who has died from opioid addiction.” By Paul Blest.

The scale and darkness of this epidemic is a sign of a civilization in a more acute crisis than we knew.

Doctor-prescribed painkillers are not the biggest threat.

The more money a physician receives from an opioid manufacturer, the more likely he or she is to prescribe opioids, according to an exclusive analysis by CNN and researchers at Harvard University's schools of medicine and public health.

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the unsealing today of an Indictment in Manhattan federal court charging five Manhattan doctors, GORDON FREEDMAN, JEFFREY GOLDSTEIN, TODD SCHLIFSTEIN, DIALECTI VOUDOURIS, and ALEXANDRU BURDUCEA, with participating in a scheme to receive bribes and kickbacks in the form of fees for sham educational programs (“Speaker Programs”) from a pharmaceutical company (“Pharma Company-1”) in exchange for...

Victoria Toline would hunch over the kitchen table, steady her hands and draw a bead of liquid from a vial with a small dropper. It was a delicate operation that had become a daily routine — extracting ever tinier doses of the antidepressant she had taken for three years, on and off, and was desperately trying to quit. “Basically that’s all I have been doing — dealing with the dizziness, the confusion, the fatigue, all the symptoms of withdrawal,” said Ms. Toline, 27, of Tacoma, Wash. It took nine months to wean herself from the drug, Zoloft, by taking increasingly smaller doses.

Boundless Mind is here to disrupt the addiction

Synthetic opioids and cocaine are together linked to more overdose deaths. There are some theories for why.

A short documentary about my family's sordid past with Beanie Babies. Made for my Documentary Production class at The University of Arizona.

When “Breaking Bad” debuted in 2008, I was 27 years removed from a methamphetamine addiction. But if I thought about the drug, I could still smell it exactly: Medicinal and metallic and crude and burning. I know fans will be sad when the show ends its sixth and final season later this year, but not me. For me, the show can’t end soon enough.