Tag: National Affairs

Reading of the Week: Xylazine – the New NEJM Paper; Also, Probiotics for Depression (JAMA Psych) and the New Drug Crisis (Nat Affairs)

June 29, 2023 /

From the Editor

Is xylazine the new fentanyl?

In the first selection, Dr. Rahul Gupta (of the University of Pennsylvania), who serves as the US Director of National Drug Control Policy, and his co-authors write about xylazine in The New England Journal of Medicine. They describe the emergence of this medication, intended for veterinarian uses, as a substance of abuse. They note its presentation and ask research questions. “Our goal is for the designation of xylazine as an emerging threat and subsequent actions to begin to address this threat before it worsens and undermines efforts to reduce illicit fentanyl use in the United States.” We consider the paper and its implications.

In the second selection, from JAMA Psychiatry, Viktoriya L. Nikolova (of King’s College London) and her co-authors look at probiotics – an area of increasing interest for those with mood and anxiety problems. They report on the findings of a small RCT involving people with depression who took an antidepressant but had an incomplete response. “The acceptability, tolerability, and estimated effect sizes on key clinical outcomes are promising and encourage further investigation of probiotics as add-on treatment for people with MDD in a definitive efficacy trial.”

And in the third selection, Charles Fain Lehman (of the Manhattan Institute) comments on the new drug crisis in a long essay for National Affairs. Lehman notes the rise of the synthetic agents (think fentanyl replacing heroin) and its impact on people, particularly in terms of overdoses. “Today’s drug cycle is different from previous ones, measured not just in the number of people addicted, but the number dead. Reducing the growth of that figure, now more than ever, is a vital task for policymakers to undertake.”

DG

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Reading of the Week: “Taking On the Scourge of Opioids” – Dr. Sally Satel’s New Essay

July 13, 2017 /

From the Editor

Today, the addicted are not inner-city minori­ties, though big cities are increasingly reporting problems. Instead, they are overwhelmingly white and rural, though middle- and upper-class individuals are also affected. The jarring visual of the crisis is not an urban ‘gang banger’ but an overdosed mom slumped in the front seat of her car in a Walmart parking lot, toddler in the back.

So writes Dr. Sally Satel, an addiction psychiatrist, about the opioid epidemic.

Dr. Satel is writing about the United States, but these problems are also seen north of the 49th parallel. Canadians remain the second highest per-capita consumers of opioids in the world; for the record, only our southern neighbours best us. And, like in the U.S., opioid use has soared in recent years – and so has misuse.

Opioids: little pills, big problems

How did we get here? And where do we go?

This week’s selection: a new essay by Dr. Satel. Drawing on the words of Nicholas Eberstadt, she describes “a new plague for a new century.” Dr. Satel writes about the roots of this drug problem and considers options moving forward.

DG

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