Heroin Bust In Greensboro Highlights Local Problem

WFMY News2 broadcast an informative report (shown below) on the continued rise of heroin abuse and drug trafficking in the Piedmont Triad. On February 5, Guilford County deputies pulled over a man on I-40 and confiscated 8 pounds of heroin which had been hidden in the car’s battery. The estimated value of the heroin was
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New NIDA Study on Increase in Heroin Use

A National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH) article highlights findings recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study determined that new opioid prescription policies which more carefully regulate the prescribing of opioids have not directly led to a rise in heroin use over the last few years. Researchers found that an individual’s
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Thinking About The Meaning of Recovery

The word Recovery is a powerful symbol of hope for people who deal with addiction. Before alcohol and drug addiction were so readily addressed in society, the medical community used recovery as a reference to that period of time when a person was recuperating from a surgery or extended illness. So-and-so has had a full
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Public Perception of Methadone

Methadone is the prescribed medication which ADS uses to assist opioid-addicted people in their effort to become free of heroin and other deadly opiates. Methadone has been proven a highly effective treatment intervention for individuals struggling with daily opioid withdrawal. Methadone is FDA-approved and is presently being prescribed to many thousands of opioid-addicted people throughout
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CNN Article on Heroin-related Overdoses

A new article from CNN cites an announcement by the Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) confirming that heroin use is increasing rapidly across the United States. The staggering result of this is that: “Deaths from heroin-related overdoses nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013.” The CDC report indicated that heroin use doubled among women
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The Drug Problem In China Is Growing

A Reuter’s (Beijing) article, published in Business Insider, just covered the rise of heroin and methamphetamine abuse in China. 2014 saw nearly 49,000 drug-related deaths and an estimated financial loss of approximately 500 billion yuan ($80 billion is U.S. dollars). The story indicates that China has instituted a nationwide crackdown on drugs in response to a
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Alberta Canada Sees Increase in Utilization of Methadone

The Metronews of Canada recently published an article outlining a recent increase in the utilization of methadone to treat opioid addiction. The Alberta Canada Health agency shared statistics showing that approximately twice as many people began opioid replacement therapy with methadone during the fiscal year 2012 – 2013. The number of patients receiving methadone rose
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Anthony Steele Attends NC Heroin Summit

Anthony Steele is the Director of Medical Services at Alcohol and Drug Services. In the video below, Dr. Steele addresses a variety of questions about Piedmont Triad community concerns regarding the local opioid addiction problem. A focus of the Heroin Summit was on the multi-level benefits of instituting harm reduction tools in the community to
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Beginning Buprenorphine in the Emergency Room

There is an interesting blog post by Dr. Jana Burson in which she discusses a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The study occurred in the state of Connecticut, and it centered on providing patients a 3-day supply of buprenorphine when they presented in the ER and were found to
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Believe In The Power Of Recovery

Achieving something of value typically begins with the belief that one can accomplish a goal if they set their mind to it. With an addiction problem, self-doubt can creep into the picture and keep a person from believing that they can change or that living drug free is truly attainable. As a counselor, I have
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