Junkie. Crackhead. Drug habit. These are only a handful of the terms that perpetuate the dangerous myth of moral failing surrounding addiction. The language around drugs and drug use has a storied past, one filled with racial discrimination, criminalization, and...
The War on Drugs, first launched in the 70s by the Nixon administration, focused on reducing illegal drug trade by targeting the drug supply and responding to possession and use with strict law enforcement. This approach has done little to help people impacted by...
Hospitals are on the front lines of the opioid epidemic. Nearly 500,000 people with an opioid use disorder (OUD) are discharged from the hospital each year. Rates of opioid-related emergency department visits and inpatient stays have risen dramatically, as have rates...
There may be no more dangerous contributor to the current opioid epidemic than stigma. Stigma is the lack of respect for a person or a group of people because they have done something or have traits of which society disapproves. And stigma isn’t just an abstract...