Darknet fentanyl. A 10-month investigation across three continents. Dozens of law enforcement agencies. This was no small operation. And it paid off. After careful coordination among nine countries, operation “Dark HunTor” took 500 pounds of illicit drugs off the market – along with $32 million in cash and 45 firearms. The far-reaching drug enforcement operation …

When does drug use become drug abuse? What does it look like to cross the line from medication to dependency? How can you tell if you or a loved one needs help with opioid addiction? How about we take the guesswork out of it? Mental health professionals look to the DSM-5 for guidance, and we …

I remember when he was five and his biggest concern was getting the latest dinosaur toy. Now Josh is 15, and he’s just so different lately. I don’t expect him to be five anymore, but the changes I’m seeing…I’m concerned. He’s lost interest in soccer, started hanging out with a new crowd, and he’s just …

I used to dread making the 100-mile drive to visit my family for Thanksgiving. I loved the food, but I was always triggered by the company. The anxiety would kick in at least a week before – sometimes two depending on how professionally overwhelmed I was at the time – so I’d head to the …

The opioid epidemic has been raging a deadly war in the United States for over two decades.  In the late 90s, Big Pharma readily reassured doctors that their patients would not become addicted to opioid pain relievers, so they started doling out prescriptions at greater rates than ever before. Unsurprisingly, this led to widespread misuse …

Waiting on a loved one to hit “rock bottom” before getting help for an addiction is not only harmful, it is potentially lethal. While we may have been encouraged to proceed with tough love by not “enabling” a loved one, we can inadvertently push them further into their addiction.  Instead, a more helpful approach would …

Awareness is up. New remedies are in the works. But the stats related to the opioid epidemic are still staggering. Opioids were involved in nearly 50,000 overdose deaths in 2019. In 2019, 7 million people misused prescription pain relievers. In 2020, U.S. doctors wrote more than 142 million opioid prescriptions. (In some counties, they wrote …

The U.S. continues to not only fight the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now also grappling with some major supply chain issues that are leaving the country in chaos. Caused in part by the pandemic, disruptions to the global supply chain are responsible for gridlock in ports, material scarcity, bare shelves in grocery stores and prison …

The opioid crisis is a complex issue in the United States. Opioids kill 50,000 Americans every year, yet they’re still considered to be an effective pain reliever for chronic pain. That’s something lawmakers hope to change by implementing more training programs for doctors and providers prescribing opioids. The Scope of Opioid Prescribing in the US …

“Two out of every five fentanyl pills that we are seizing are a lethal dose.” – Kyle Williamson, Special Agent, El Paso Drug Enforcement Agency It’s unprecedented. Fentanyl seizures by the El Paso DEA are up over 524%, and methamphetamine seizures are up over 200%. These numbers were reported by Kyle Williamson, a recently retired …