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Patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) experience various forms of stigma at the individual, public, and structural levels that can affect how they access and engage with healthcare, particularly with medicat...
Good Samaritan Laws are a harm reduction policy intended to facilitate a reduction in fatal opioid overdoses by enabling bystanders, first responders, and health care providers to assist individuals experienci...
People who inject drugs (PWID) are at risk of HIV acquisition. The number of PWID in South African cities is increasing, and in spite of an advanced HIV prevention and treatment programme, there are PWID who e...
The present commentary highlights the pressing need for systematic research to assess the implementation and effectiveness of medications for opioid use disorder, used in conjunction with peer recovery support...
Retention in substance use treatment is essential to treatment success. While programmatic factors are known to influence retention, less is known about the role of involuntary discharges from drug or alcohol ...
During the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a surprisingly low incidence of SARS-CoV-2 among People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) in Oslo, Norway, despite their heightened vulnerability regarding risk o...
The current fourth wave of the United States opioid overdose epidemic is characterized by the co-use of opioids and stimulants, including illicit opioids and methamphetamine. The co-use of these two drugs, kno...
Gambling and gambling-related harm attract significant researcher and policy attention. The liberalisation of gambling in most western countries is strongly associated with a marked rise in gambling activity a...
Policies to address substance use differ greatly between settings, where goals may range from zero-tolerance to harm reduction. Different approaches impact formats of care, policing, and even interpersonal int...
People who use drugs (PWUD) are at increased risk for HIV infection. HIV self-testing (HIVST) is a promising method for identifying new infections, but optimal distribution strategies remain understudied.
Fentanyl test strips (FTS) are lateral flow immunoassay strips designed for detection of ng/mL levels of fentanyl in urine. In 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health...
As the opioid public health crisis evolves to include fentanyl and other potent synthetic opioids, more patients are admitted to the hospital with serious complications of drug use and frequently require highe...
Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) offer a substantial harm reduction opportunity for adults who smoke and are unlikely to quit. However, a major concern about ENDS is their use by non-smoking youth, ...
Globally, non-fatal overdose (NFOD) rates consequent to drug use, typically opioids, continue increasing at a startling rate. Existing quantitative research has revealed myriad factors and characteristics link...
In response to the devastating drug toxicity crisis in Canada driven by an unregulated opioid supply predominantly composed of fentanyl and analogues, safer supply programs have been introduced. These programs...
The original article was published in Harm Reduction Journal 2024 21:84
Drug-involved individuals who contact treatment services in Taiwan are mostly driven by criminal justice systems either as an alternative or adjunct to criminal sanctions for a drug offence. With a focus on ju...
Syringe services programs (SSPs) are critical healthcare access points for people with opioid use disorder (OUD) who face treatment utilization barriers. Co-locating care for common psychiatric comorbidities, ...
Efforts to distribute naloxone have equipped more people with the ability to reverse opioid overdoses but people who use drugs are often reluctant to call 911 due to concerns for legal repercussions. Rural com...
In an era of escalating and intersectional crises, the toxic drug poisoning crisis stands out as a devastating and persistent phenomenon. Where we write from in British Columbia (BC), Canada, over 13,000 death...
Australia prohibits the sale of nicotine-vaping products unless prescribed by medical practitioners. Significant policy reforms were announced on the 28th of November 2023 including a ban on single-use disposa...
Cannabis was legalised for medical purposes in 2016. Uptake was initially slow, but since 2019 there has been a large increase in the number of Australians who have been prescribed cannabis for medical reasons...
People in Connecticut are now more likely to die of a drug-related overdose than a traffic accident. While Connecticut has had some success in slowing the rise in overdose death rates, substantial additional p...
The opioid epidemic remains one of the largest public health crises in North America to date. While there have been many diverse strategies developed to reduce the harms associated with substance use, these ar...
Individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) often have concurrent use of non-opioid substances. When patients enter opioid maintenance treatment (OMT), less is known about outcomes regarding the use of other ty...
Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is a popular drug worldwide and use is prevalent in Aotearoa New Zealand. Although associated with some significant harms, including fatalities, MDMA is ultimately less har...
The rapid increase in e-cigarette use over the past decade has triggered an important public health question on the potential association between e-cigarette use and combustible cigarette smoking. Following AM...
Prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among people who inject drugs in the state of Manipur, India, is 43%; however, access to care is poor. We piloted a Community-led and comprehensive hepatitis car...
Structural harm reduction is an approach to care for people who use drugs (PWUD) that incorporates services and resources (e.g., naloxone, sterile syringes). As conceptualized in our previous research, harm re...
Research regarding the contribution of specific psychoactive substances to suicidality has yielded equivocal results. The present study examined the prevalence and factors associated with suicidal thoughts and...
The use of stimulants and other substances with the purpose of enhancing, maintaining, and prolonging sexual activity is known as sexualized substance use. Also known as chemsex, this pattern of use has been m...
The COVID-19 pandemic had a disproportionate impact on the health and wellbeing of people who use drugs (PWUD) in Canada. However less is known about jurisdictional commonalities and differences in COVID-19 ex...
Naloxone is an effective FDA-approved opioid antagonist for reversing opioid overdoses. Naloxone is available to the public and can be administered through intramuscular (IM), intravenous (IV), and intranasal ...
Mortality related to opioid overdose in the U.S. has risen sharply in the past decade. In California, opioid overdose death rates more than tripled from 2018 to 2021, and deaths from synthetic opioids such as ...
Substance use disorder treatment and recovery support services are critical for achieving and maintaining recovery. There are limited data on how structural and social changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic impa...
Although electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) appear to be effective in helping people who smoke to stop smoking, concerns about use of e-cigarettes among young people have led to restrictions on non-tobacco f...
In British Columbia, Canada, smoking is the most common modality of drug use among people who die of opioid toxicity. We aimed to assess oxygen saturation (SpO2) while people smoked opioids during a pilot study t...
Barriers to access to hepatitis C treatment with direct-acting antivirals in people who inject drugs in the community setting. Qualitative study with prison population. Hepatitis C (HCV) treatments with direct...
In response to the overdose crisis, a collaborative group of two community-based organizations, a health authority and a research institute in Vancouver, Canada, implemented a pilot community-based drug checki...
During the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health orders disrupted income generation in numerous sectors and many governments provided emergency financial support. Access to government support an...
During the COVID−19 pandemic, clinics offering medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) needed to rapidly introduce unsupervised take−home dosing, while relapsing patients and patients unable to enter treatme...
A heated tobacco product (HTP) authorized for purchase in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration as a reduced harm product was removed from the market after about 2 years of sales. Adults who us...
The Correction to this article has been published in Harm Reduction Journal 2024 21:110
Recovery from addiction is frequently equated with abstinence. However, some individuals who resolve an addiction continue to use substances, including via substitution (i.e., increased use of one substance af...
Cannabis use before the COVID-19 pandemic for many involved sharing prepared cannabis for inhalation, practices that were less prevalent during the pandemic. State-level COVID-19 containment policies may have ...
Psychological and social status, and environmental context, may mediate the likelihood of experiencing overdose subsequent to illicit drug use. The aim of this systematic review was to identify and synthesise ...
Buprenorphine is an effective treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD); however, buprenorphine initiation can be complicated by withdrawal symptoms including precipitated withdrawal. There has been increasing i...
People who nonmedically use drugs (PWUD) face intricate social issues that suppress self-actualization, communal integration, and overall health and wellness. “Strengths-based” approaches, an under-used pedago...
As well as being associated with serious negative health outcomes, smoking has been reported to have an array of physiological and psychological effects, including effects on mood and cognitive function. Post-...
Drug overdose deaths in the United States exceeded 100,000 in 2021 and 2022. Substance use stigma is a major barrier to treatment and harm reduction utilization and is a priority target in ending the overdose ...
Understanding current substance use practices is critical to reduce and prevent overdose deaths among individuals at increased risk including persons who use and inject drugs. Because individuals participating...
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