Substance Misuse

Is the current spike in highway deaths connected to more widespread cannabis use? Testing obstacles have stood in the way of knowing for sure. That may soon change.

Addiction treatment comes with its own strict privacy rules. Perhaps it shouldn’t.

Physician Mark Eisenberg discusses the furor over (and the desperate need for) safer injection sites.

The California Death Certificate Project is finding the physicians associated with opioid overdoses. Is it justice or a witch hunt?

The 18th Amendment launched the most sweeping health experiment in U.S. history. Physicians—then and now—have debated its complex legacy.

People with drug addictions produce more of a certain brain chemical—and research may point to new ways to block it.

Neurologist Anne Louise Oaklander investigates a cause of chronic pain that is treatable without opioids.

Is the oldest treatment for opioid addictions being unjustly overlooked in the response to the current crisis?

More physicians are prescribing a class of drugs called gabapentinoids to manage pain. Should we be worried?

Alcohol use is at an all-time high among older Americans, and that trend brings a host of health risks.

Changing the norms of surgery may head off the addiction that can take root during recovery.

Experts comment on the risks of opioids and rising suicide rates.

Top Stories

Selected Reads

For decades, a tiny encampment of researchers has held that statin treatment is a hoax. In a time when contrarian views roar to life on social media, how can medicine keep minority opinions from doing irreparable harm?

Two years in deep space will subject the body to unprecedented stresses. Scientists are probing the secrets to survival.

A freak explosion tore through the quiet Nova Scotian city, prompting one of the most dramatic medical responses in history.