Read more about the article Biden Proposes Billions in Federal Aid to Fight Addiction
The money Biden proposed could go to treatment and recovery.

Biden Proposes Billions in Federal Aid to Fight Addiction

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The Biden administration is getting ready to commit billions of dollars to help fight the addiction epidemic. The President recently requested $10.7 billion from Congress to support medication-assisted treatment (MAT) and other mental health services.

Biden Hopes to Help Neglected Communities

Biden also wants his new drug policy to be one of recovery rather than incarceration. During his campaign, he expressed regret for how he and others dealt with the crack epidemic. Now, as a man whose son struggles with addiction, he understands that substance use disorder is a disease.

Sadly, in the 1990s, during the height of the crack epidemic in urban areas, addiction was treated as a moral failing. Thousands of Black Americans lost friends, families, and freedom to the crack epidemic. But after addicted people were incarcerated, Black families were fractured and criminalized, often leading to a cycle of trauma and poverty for the next generation.

Biden …

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Addiction Rural Community Action Guide Now Available

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The Trump Administration released a new tool today meant to help rural community leaders to build a community response to the addiction crisis, which has killed tens of thousands of people in the past ten years.

What is the Action Guide?

The Rural Community Action Guide has research and background information to help community leaders understand more about addiction and the addiction epidemic. In rural areas, there are often few resources available to help people with addiction problems. Many people with an addiction or mental health disorder may feel isolated or desperate. Yet addiction has become widespread throughout small-town America.

In the guide, local government and community members can learn more about recommended action steps, and best practices when it comes to small towns and rural communities.

 “Families and communities in rural America have been hard hit by the crisis of addiction, and face unique challenges in developing effective responses …

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Cocaine-Opioid Cocktails Have Been Killing Since 2010

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People have been dying from opioid and cocaine cocktails regularly since 2010, but there hasn’t been much reporting on it. That’s partially because the focus is on the fact that these deaths were from opioids. But calling these deaths “opioid overdoses” is problematic because, in some cases, the drug users were never aware that they were using an opioid.

According to the Washington Examiner, more than 10,100 people died from mixing the drugs in 2017. 7,241 of those deaths showed both cocaine and fentanyl in their systems. Fentanyl is a potent opioid about 50 to 200 times stronger than morphine. It’s also the deadliest opioid in the US, with the majority of deaths in 2017.

Deaths caused by opioids and cocaine have risen nearly 76 percent since 2012.

Recently, opioid test strips have emerged across the United States as a part of harm-reduction efforts. The strips, which cost …

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Single-Step Naloxone Most Effective in Reversing Overdoses

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Addiction professionals and first responders cope with a lot of variables when responding to an overdose, but nothing has changed the outcomes of emergency calls like Naloxone (also known as Narcan), an opioid antagonist drug that has the power to reverse overdoses. There are several versions of Naloxone delivery available. However, research has revealed that the single-step nasal inhaler seems to be most effective at reversing overdoses, according to new research led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University at New York.

In the past few years, expanded access to naloxone has saved thousands of lives by reversing fatal overdoses in people with opioid use disorder. While many people who overdose are not ready for help yet, others identify the moment their overdose occurred as a pivotal point in their life that helped them choose to get into recovery. Law enforcement and other first responders carry the drug on them …

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