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“All Scientific Hands on Deck” to End the Opioid Crisis

May 31, 2017
In 2015, two million people had a prescription opioid use disorder and 591,000 suffered from a heroin use disorder; prescription drug misuse alone cost the nation $78.5 billion in healthcare, law enforcement, and lost productivity. But while the scope of the crisis is staggering, it is not hopeless. By Nora Volkow (Director, NIDA) and Francis Collins (Director, NIH) Read More.

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Recent Posts

Seeking Input from the Community on NIDA’s Scientific Reorganization

June 2015
NIDA’s Advisory Council periodically reviews the various programs and Divisions within the Institute to ensure they best reflect NIDA’s capacities and mission. At our May 2015 Council meeting, an Advisory Council workgroup presented a series of recommendations related to the scientific areas currently led by the Division of Clinical Neuroscience and Behavioral Research (DCNBR). Read More.

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Scans of healthy brain versus methamphetaine user showing reduced dopamine levels in the striatum

Addiction Is a Disease of Free Will

June 2015
When I was five or six years old, my grandfather—my mother’s father—died of what I was always told was complications of heart disease. It was not until much later that I learned the real reason for his death. Read More.

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Image of HIV - cover art from Reseach Report

The Major HIV Outbreak in Indiana Was Preventable

May 2015
One of the fastest-spreading recorded U.S. outbreaks of HIV since the inception of the epidemic is now occurring in southeastern Indiana, and it is being driven by injection drug use—specifically, abuse of the opioid painkiller Opana (oxymorphone). Read More.

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Photo of marijuana spilling from a prescription bottle

Taking a Science-informed Approach to Medical Marijuana

April 2015
Opinion on marijuana has changed dramatically in the United States. The public increasingly perceives it as a benign substance, and there is growing interest in its potential medicinal uses. Read More.

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Summit attendees listen to Dr. Nora Volkow's presentation

The 2015 Prescription Drug Abuse Summit

April 2015
This event, which is the brainchild of Kentucky Congressman and House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, has grown in attendance each year, successfully shining a light on this terrible public health problem in our nation. Read More.

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HHS Announces Actions to Attack the Opioid Abuse Crisis

March 2015
Deaths from opioid painkillers now exceed all other drug overdose deaths, and we are seeing increases in heroin use and increased deaths from heroin as people addicted to painkillers transition to this cheaper, more potent street drug. More must be done to confront the opioid crisis head-on Read More.

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Knowns and Unknowns about e-Cigarettes and Teens

February 2015
When asked in early 2014, 17.1 percent of high school seniors and 16.2 percent of 10th graders reported using e-cigarettes in the previous month. We are still wrestling with whether or not e-cigarettes pose a danger, but their popularity among youth combined with society’s past experiences with tobacco and other addictive substances demands that we urge caution around these products. Read More.

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Brain in Progress: Why Teens Can’t Always Resist Temptation

January 2015
The changes in the brain common to obesity and drug addiction are especially pertinent to the struggles teens face to resist drugs, because adolescence is a crucial period both of susceptibility to the rewards of drugs and of vulnerability to the long-term effects of drug exposure Read More.

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Good News from Monitoring the Future 2014

December 2014
At the end of a year that has seen further tragic deaths from addiction and new designer drugs that put young people at risk, today's results from the 2014 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey of drug use among adolescents provide a dose of welcome optimism. Read More.

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Image of brain scans of control and Obese subjects showing reduced DA D2 receptor activity from control

Reproducibility Issues May Be Science’s Growing Pains

November 2014
I have written before about the reproducibility crisis in the health sciences. High percentages of published findings are failing to be reproduced, and this has prompted NIH Institutes and other funding agencies, as well as scientific journals and universities, to take measures to improve how science is taught, funded, conducted, and published. Read More.

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About This Blog

Here I highlight important work being done at NIDA and other news related to the science of drug abuse and addiction.
—Dr. Nora Volkow, Director

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Dr. Nora Volkow: Video Highlights

NIDA Director, Dr. Nora D. Volkow Videos

National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA): Quality Talks, October 2016
Treating Addiction Within the Health Care System
Watch video (18:51)
APA TV, May 2016
APA TV chats with Dr. Nora Volkow, the Director of NIDA to hear about her lecture on drug abuse and the opioid epidemic.
Watch video (3:20)
Kentucky Educational Television, May 2016
One to One with Bill Goodman: Dr. Nora Volkow
Watch video (27:41)
TEDMED, January 2015
Why do our brains get addicted?
Watch video (16:23)
The World Science Festival, May 2013
Meet Pioneer in Science, Dr. Nora Volkow
Watch video (5:44)
Rockburn Presents, November 2012
Dr. Nora Volkow
Watch video (29:32)
Brookhaven National Laboratory WBNL Video, October 2012
Chemistry celebration: FDG: Contribution to Our Understanding of Addiction
Watch video (43:05)
CBS 60 Minutes, April 2012
Hooked: Why Bad Habits Are Hard to Break
Watch video (13:31)
Science Times, June 2011
Dr. Nora Volkow
Watch video (8:19)

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