The push towards decriminalization comes as the opioid crisis continues to claim thousands of lives on both sides of the 49th parallel

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

Should law enforcement be able to test them?

Fake marijuana likely contaminated with rat poison has killed three people in Illinois and caused severe bleeding in more than 100 others, including a few in four other states. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has alerted doctors nationwide that patients with severe, unexplained bleeding may be additional cases.

New scientific research provides more evidence that the psychedelic drug ibogaine can help treat opioid withdrawal and cravings. The new findings are reported in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. Ibogaine a psychoactive substance found in the root bark of the African Tabernanthe iboga plant, which has been used in the shamanic rituals of the Bwiti religion in West Africa. The drug is outlawed in the United States and many other countries, but remains legally available in Mexico. The new research examined 50 patients addicted to heroin or prescription opioids who participated in a week-long ibogaine treatment program in Tijuana.

Our best bet to avoid 'peak pharma' may be beneath our feet, in the diminutive world of insects.

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.

Long-term use of the medications is surging in the United States, according to an analysis by The Times. One reason: withdrawal symptoms that make it difficult to stop.

Long-term use of the medications is surging in the United States, according to an analysis by The Times. One reason: withdrawal symptoms that make it difficult to stop.

Nobody called 911 when Michael Akey overdosed on heroin. He remembers waking up at the sink in his Brattleboro hotel room, pouring sweat, his head ringing, he said. He learned later that he stopped breathing, and that his then-girlfriend had to administer rescue breaths. He found out later that she called friends, who brought over the opioid overdose antidote naloxone.

Two new studies support this correlation

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

There are rallies planned in almost every state this weekend.

And what it can teach us about the second

It's no secret that scientists can be corrupted - in the past, researchers have purposefully hidden data on climate change, and the dangers of sugar, just to name a few.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed federal prosecutors on Wednesday to seek the death penalty in drug-related cases whenever it is "appropriate," saying the Justice Department must boost efforts to counter America's epidemic of opioid abuse.

There’s a fake form of marijuana going around Illinois — and it’s making people bleed from their eyes and ears. The Illinois Department of Public Health issued a warning about synthetic “weed” known as “spice,” “K2” or “Mind Trip” on March 27. At that time, there were six people who reported “severe bleeding” after taking the fake pot since March 7, according to the state department.

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

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.

Doctor-prescribed painkillers are not the biggest threat.

News out of Canada got us thinking.

Jefferson Airplane

Donald Trump will announce death penalties for drug dealers on Monday. A top administration official said on Sunday the president’s plan to combat opioid drug addiction nationwide, to be announced in New Hampshire on Monday, calls for the death penalty for drug traffickers where appropriate under current law.

A wide range of drugs from cancer therapies to antipsychotics affect the growth of microbes that are found in our gut, researchers say, highlighting that it is not only antibiotics that can have an impact on our internal flora. These microbes, whose genes taken together are known as the gut microbiome, play an important role in our health, including for our immune system and our digestion, and have been linked to a host of diseases such as autoimmune conditions, obesity and mood disorders.

Norway’s drug laws could be an example for the rest of the world, leading healthcare and police figures from around the world have said. Drug policy in the Scandinavian country is no longer a criminal matter but one of public health - a move that has been widely praised by experts. Now 20 international policymakers and stakeholders from 10 countries have outlined a number of further reforms to ensure the policy platform can work as an even better template for other countries to follow.

More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly.

Authorities in New York have indicted a suspected Mexican drug kingpin they say was responsible for trafficking enough fentanyl to kill 10 million people. Authorities say the arrest of Francisco Quiroz-Zamora provides a window into how the powerful Sinaloa cartel moves drugs from Mexico to the United States. Quiroz-Zamora, a 41-year-old known as “Gordo,” or the Fat One, has been charged with operating as a major trafficker, first-degree sale of a controlled substance and second-degree conspiracy.

Testing the magical properties of mushrooms led scientists to philosophy's open secret.

A 2017 Global Drug Survey (GDS) covering hundreds of thousands of people around the world has ranked recreational drugs from the safest to the most dangerous, based on how many hospital admissions they lead to.

In just two years, drug giant McKesson Corp. shipped nearly 5 million prescription painkillers to a single pharmacy in a Southern West Virginia town with 400 residents, according to a letter released Thursday by a congressional committee investigating the opioid epidemic. McKesson, which ranks No. 5 in the Fortune 500, supplied more than 184,000 hydrocodone pills a month to a drive-thru pharmacy in Kermit in 2006 and 2007, the House Energy & Commerce disclosed in the letter.

The combination is naproxen (in Aleve) and stomach drug esomeprazole (in Nexium).

Insulin, first discovered in 1921, revolutionized the treatment of type 1 diabetes.

A growing body of research suggests a psychedelic drugs anxiety link, but we're still learning how they work and dealing with laws against their use

Big corporations, not street dealers, are the true authors and profiteers of the opioid crisis... At a recent rally in New Hampshire, Donald Trump called for the death penalty for drug traffickers as part of a plan to combat the opioid epidemic in the United States. At a Pennsylvania rally a few weeks earlier, he called for the same.

Ayahuasca may be helping to reduce rates of recidivism at Brazil's prisons. Some of Brazil's violent offenders are being offered the opportunity for radical rehabilitation via the powerful psychedelic experience of the ayahuasca ceremony.