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Illustration of rats in a maze

New NIDA Research Reveals the Power of Social Reinforcers

October 15, 2018
Medication is a crucial part of treating addiction—but by itself, a pill or an injection may not be sufficient. Social support has long been known to be an important factor in a variety of recovery programs and treatment approaches. Read More.

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Recent Posts

Commission on Narcotic Drugs 2014

UNODC Recommends Treating Addiction as Health, Not Legal, Issue

March 2014
Earlier this month I went to Vienna for the 57th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), part of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). There I chaired a working group that presented a set of recommendations to the CND concerning the most appropriate, scientifically informed way to approach the problem of substance use disorders: as a medical, not a legal, issue. Read More.

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Naloxone as packaged in a box for distribution

Naloxone—A Potential Lifesaver

March 2014
Naloxone can reverse or block the effects of other opioids. It can very quickly restore normal respiration to a person whose breathing has slowed or stopped as a result of abusing heroin or prescription opioids, or accidentally ingesting too much pain medication Read More.

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Glucose metabolism in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in healthy and cocaine-addicted subject.

Addiction and Free Choice

February 2014
The recent death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a result of drug addiction has provoked many thoughtful, sympathetic responses in the media, from people in recovery who understand how hard it is to wrestle with addiction, as well as from scientifically informed journalists who understand that addiction is a disease. Read More.

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Philip Seymour Hoffman

Another Reminder of the Terrible Toll of Addiction

February 2014
This past weekend Americans were shocked and saddened to learn that one of our greatest actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman, had died at age 46 of an apparent heroin overdose. Hoffman’s death, in the prime of his life and career, is a poignant reminder of some of the harsh realities of a disease that 17.7 million Americans struggle with and that all too often cuts their lives short. Read More.

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Students at the National Drug Facts Week assembly for the South Central SADD organization in Greenwich, Ohio.

National Drug Facts Week

January 2014
This week—January 27 through February 2—is the fourth annual National Drug Facts Week. Every year since 2010, NIDA has sponsored this observance, during which schools and other community organizations host events to share and spread the science on drugs and drug abuse to teenagers. Read More.

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Logo for Monitoring the Future

Monitoring the Future Reveals Both Encouraging and Discouraging Trends

December 2013
Every year, the NIDA-supported Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan asks 8th, 10th, and 12th graders across the country about their current and past drug use and their attitudes toward drug use, providing us with an invaluable barometer of youth drug trends from year to year. Read More.

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Nancy Mello

Remembering Nancy Mello, an Addiction Research Visionary

December 2013
A professor of psychology (neuroscience) at Harvard Medical School and a long-time NIDA grantee, Mello was a pioneer in the study of addiction, having done some of the first laboratory research on alcohol self-administration and withdrawal effects in people with alcoholism. In 1985, Mello and her husband, Jack H. Mendelson, MD, published Alcohol Use and Abuse in America, which examined the history of alcohol in American society as well as the biology of alcohol abuse. Both also made major contributions to our understanding of other substance use disorders, exemplified by their 1980 Science paper, which was the first to suggest that the drug buprenorphine could be used to treat opioid dependence. A little over two decades later, buprenorphine received FDA approval, and is now one of the most commonly used and effective treatments available for opioid addiction. Read More.

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Panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt

World AIDS Day 2013—Addiction Treatment Supports AIDS Treatment

November 2013
December 1 is World AIDS Day. At NIDA, we always stress the principle that drug abuse treatment is AIDS prevention, because of the close links that exist between drug abuse and the spread of HIV. Injection drug use alone contributed to more than 7% of new infections in 2011, although the population of people who use drugs by any route who are also HIV-positive is much higher. Drug use goes hand-in-hand with various behaviors besides needle-sharing that place individuals at risk for HIV infection, such as unprotected sex. Read More.

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Dr. Nora Volkow and other scientists and scholars with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India

Talking to the Dalai Lama about Addiction Science

November 2013
Recently, I had the privilege of visiting Dharamsala, India, for a dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama about addiction science, as part of a five-day conference at his Mind and Life Institute. I was very impressed at the Tibetan Buddhist leader’s personal interest in the brain, and in his desire to convene a small group of scientists from around the world along with Buddhist contemplatives and other scholars to discuss the topic of craving, desire, and addiction. Read More.

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Image of hand holding cigarette with caption "It's drug addiction"

Tobacco-Related Mortality and Mental Illness

November 2013
Addiction goes hand in hand with other mental illnesses. People with psychiatric conditions smoke at twice to four times the rate of the general population, and they are estimated to purchase nearly half of all cigarettes sold in this country. Yet physicians have tended to ignore the smoking behavior of their psychiatric patients. Read More.

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Dr. Nora Volkow: Remarks and Video Highlights

APA 2015 meeting

About This Blog

Dr. Nora Volkow

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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