Heroin

An analysis of recent drug use in the United States revealed unexpected trends in substances being used in tandem with fentanyl, according to an expert.

There were more drug overdose deaths in 2020 than anticipated based on trends from 2013 to 2019, with more fatalities among Black people compared with white people, according to findings published in PLOS Global Public Health.

Adults who previously used psilocybin, a psychedelic substance, were 30% less likely to have opioid use disorder, according to findings published in Scientific Reports.

Researchers found a direct association between county-level opioid dispensing rate and individual-level prescription opioid misuse, misuse frequency and dependence, according to study results published in American Journal of Psychiatry.

High school students with nonmedical opioid misuse may have an increased risk for heroin use later in life, according to research published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.

Opioid-associated ototoxicity, or hearing loss, appears to be an adverse event that can occur with the use of a variety of opioids, according to research published in the Journal of Medical Toxicology.

From 2017 to 2018, the rate of all drug overdose deaths decreased 4.1%, prescription opioid-involved overdose deaths decreased 13.5% and heroin deaths dropped 4%, according to the CDC. However, agency also reported that deaths involving synthetic opioids, excluding methadone, increased by 10% during that same period.

Heroin smokers experienced a significant increase in respiratory impairment with a continuous decline in lung function over time, according to a cohort study published in CHEST.

In a study conducted in Los Angeles and San Francisco among 395 people who inject drugs, researchers found that participants who reported perceived illicit fentanyl use were at an increased risk for injection-related infectious diseases.

Synthetic opioids like fentanyl “kill on a scale that is unprecedented among illegal drugs,” according to a new report conducted by the RAND Corporation.