Making Addiction Treatment More Realistic and Pragmatic: The Perfect Should Not be the Enemy of the Good
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Last year saw drug overdose deaths in the U.S. surpass an unthinkable milestone: 100,000 deaths in a year
This is Archived Content. This content is available for historical purposes only. It may not reflect the current state of science or language from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). View current Director's content on nida.nih.gov
A Year-End Message from Dr. Nora Volkow
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NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow offers a year-end message of hope during the holiday season
This World AIDS Day, Finding Inspiration at the Intersection of HIV and Substance Use
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NIDA presents a new web video series on research, compassion, and HIV services for people who use drugs
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Paul was a coach, advocate, and one of the leading voices for the HEALing Communities Study
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Dr. Volkow writes about her personal experience with stigma and the need for intervention to change attitudes
Longitudinal Studies of Children Will Provide Needed Insight about the Developmental Impact of the Pandemic
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The HEALthy Brain and Child Development study will answer longstanding early development questions
NIDA’s HIV Research Program: A Longstanding Institute Priority Continues Under a New Name
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To help combat the stigma that still attaches to HIV, we decided to rename our program the HIV Research Program.
Drug overdose deaths in 2020 were horrifying. Radical change is needed to address the drug crisis.
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More people died of overdoses in the U.S. in 2020 than in any other one-year period. These data are shouting for change.
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Punitive policies around drugs contribute to the overwhelming stigma against people with addiction
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Substance use disorders can increase the risk for becoming severely ill from COVID-19, making vaccinations vital.
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New guidance for researchers establishes a standard THC unit of 5 milligrams.
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A public health approach to drug addiction is critical for population well-being and health equity
Mourning the Loss of a Great Addiction Pioneer
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Remembering Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek, a great addiction pioneer and longtime NIDA grantee.
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NIH Director Francis Collins announces UNITE, an NIH-wide initiative to end structural racism in biomedical science
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Inherent in the mission of NIH is that biomedical research and its application can and should benefit all people
ADAPT-2 Trial Results Deliver a Breakthrough in Long Search for Methamphetamine Use Disorder Medication
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A combination of bupropion and naltrexone successfully reduced methamphetamine use
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NIDA-funded research aims to help understand teen drug use and its effects
On World AIDS Day, Celebrating Scientific Advances and Confronting the Complexities of HIV and Substance Use
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We applaud the substantial strides made, while recognizing the challenges that need to be addressed.
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There is an alarming increase in deaths involving the stimulant drugs methamphetamine and cocaine.
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People with SUDs may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 and its most adverse health outcomes
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Significant increases in many kinds of drug use have been recorded since March
Research at the Intersection of HIV with Substance Use Disorders amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
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We are prioritizing research into how the coexisting crises of COVID-19, HIV, and substance use, including the opioid crisis, combine to create a disastrous storm, taking lives and overtaxing America’s...
NIDA Seeks Public Input for Our 2021-2025 Strategic Plan
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NIDA has begun drafting its strategic plan for 2021-2025, and to best inform that process, we are seeking input from the public and the scientific community.
NIDA Researchers Adapt Their Projects to Study COVID-19
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The U.S. is now facing two intersecting health crises, the ongoing opioid overdose epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. Regrettably, each has the potential to exacerbate the effects of the other.
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We know that science itself is at its best when it is most inclusive, and humans are best when we embrace diversity. Conversations about systemic racial inequalities can be uncomfortable...
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Healthcare already has effective tools including medications for opioid and alcohol use disorder, but they are not being utilized widely enough. One important reason is the stigma that surrounds people...
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As people across the U.S. and the rest of the world contend with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the research community should be alert to the possibility that it could hit...
National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week Celebrates Its 10th Year
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This week, March 30 through April 5, 2020, is the 10th National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW), a yearly observance organized by NIDA in partnership with the National Institute...
Request for Information: Standard Unit Dose of THC
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Today, NIDA issued a Request for Information (RFI) from the research community and any other interested parties regarding the establishment of a standard unit dose of THC in order to...
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Most common mental disorders, from depression and anxiety to PTSD, are associated with disturbed sleep, and substance use disorders are no exception. The relationship may be complex and bidirectional: Substance...
Reviewing NIDA’s 2019 Achievements and Looking to the Future
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As NIDA sets its sights on new goals and objectives for 2020 and beyond, I like to reflect on how far we have come in our research efforts, especially as...
2019 Monitoring the Future Survey Raises Worries about Teen Marijuana Vaping
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For the second year in a row, rapid rises in vaping among adolescents are the top story from the Monitoring the Future survey of drug use and attitudes among the...
Addressing the Socioeconomic Complexities of Addiction—Lessons from the Kensington Neighborhood in Philadelphia
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This September, I was invited by Thomas Farley, the Health Commissioner of Philadelphia, to see firsthand how that city is responding to the opioid crisis. We toured Prevention Point, a...
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Until recently, nicotine’s link to diabetes has been thought to involve inflammation and oxidative stress caused by chemicals in cigarette smoke, but a group of researchers have discovered an unexpected...
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NIDA’s Office of Translational Initiatives and Program Innovations (OTIPI) has used funding mechanisms to help startups develop incredibly innovative technologies
NIDA Announces New NIH HEAL Initiative Awards to Address the Opioid Crisis
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In Fiscal Year 2019, approximately 375 NIH HEAL Initiative grants, contracts, supplements, and cooperative agreements in 41 states, totaling $945 million, have been awarded to researchers and research teams across...
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September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. In observance, our two institutes, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), are taking this opportunity...
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Common sense and a growing body of research suggest that patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) who receive acute care in an emergency department will be at reduced risk for...
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Effectively delivering OUD treatment in the justice system will give individuals with OUD a chance of recovery, and will make a huge difference in reducing the toll of the opioid...
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Diversity and inclusion are paramount in all sectors of society, especially in the sciences. Yet it is a well-known (and frequently lamented) fact that males continue to dominate the speaker...
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Disparities in access to quality treatment play a role in every aspect of health care and health outcomes, and the opioid crisis is no different.
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As our communities, healthcare systems, and government agencies join in the effort to reverse the epidemic of opioid overdoses and solve the opioid crisis, it is not enough to focus...
Remembering Two Neurophysiology Pioneers
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In the first half of 2019, we have lost two researchers whose work in neuronal functioning and signaling helped revolutionize our understanding not only of the neurobiology of drug use...
How People with Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) Can Lend a Needed Hand in Addiction Research
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One of the major challenges in health science today is that not enough patients participate in clinical trials and other studies. Without volunteers willing and able to participate in studies...
Prenatal and Early Childhood Brain Development: The HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study
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The NIH HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) initiative is helping to fund an ambitious research project called the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study. This study, which will...
NIDA's Scientific Findings & Achievements of 2018
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Here I want to highlight just a few of the many outstanding developments in basic science, new therapeutics, and epidemiology and prevention research from the year that just ended.
Monitoring the Future Survey Results Show Alarming Rise in Teen Vaping
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The results of the 2018 MTF survey, released today (December 17), contain a mix of encouraging news and warning signals. Notably, the survey this year contained a major shock: a...
New Funding Opportunities in Response to the Opioid Crisis
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Today, NIDA is releasing several new funding opportunity announcements related to the NIH HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term ℠) Initiative.
World AIDS Day 2018
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World AIDS Day, is a good time to reflect on some of the spectacular successes of NIH-funded science at reducing the impact of HIV, as well as how lessons learned...
In Memoriam—Herbert Kleber
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With the passing of Herbert Kleber on October 5, the field of addiction research has lost a true giant—one of its biggest thinkers as well as one of the most...
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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...
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Nicotine does not produce the kind of euphoria or impairment that many other drugs like opioids and marijuana do. People do not get high from smoking cigarettes or vaping. Yet...
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The public health emergency of opioid misuse and addiction affects millions of Americans and requires innovative scientific solutions. Today, during “National Prescription Opioid and Heroin Awareness Week,” we are sharing...
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Ample evidence shows methadone and buprenorphine reduce overdose deaths, prevent the spread of diseases like HIV, and enable people to take back their lives, but there are restrictions on who...
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Reducing healthcare’s reliance on potentially addictive opioid pain relievers has been one of the pillars of federal efforts to reverse the opioid crisis.
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This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Epidiolex (cannabidiol, or CBD), a medication extracted from marijuana, for the treatment of two severe pediatric seizure disorders.
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In spring 2018, Congress added an additional $500 million to the NIH budget to invest in science to find solutions to the opioid crisis. The funding that NIDA is receiving...
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This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved lofexidine, the first medication targeted specifically to treat the physical symptoms associated with opioid withdrawal.
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New data-gathering and analytic capabilities are enabling the kinds of massive, long-term studies needed to investigate genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that contribute to disease.
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Today, a new analysis in JAMA by epidemiologists at NIDA and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reveals the scope of the crisis, and the rapidity with which...
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One of the pillars of the current federal initiatives to end the opioid crisis is the development of new medications to treat opioid addiction. The FDA Patient-Focused Drug Development Initiative...
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Informed Americans no longer view addiction as a moral failing, and more and more policymakers are recognizing that punishment is an ineffective and inappropriate tool for addressing a person’s drug...
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A recent study published in Lancet found that extended-release naltrexone was equally effective at reducing illicit opioid use as the partial agonist buprenorphine if patients could be successfully initiated on...
NIDA’s Past-Year Achievements Point the Way Toward Future Advances
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2017 brought exciting new basic science findings, including some striking new insights into the structure and functioning of receptors that play important roles in substance use, addiction, and pain.
Monitoring the Future Results Show Reduced Opioid Misuse but Popularity of Vaping Among Youth
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Today the results of the 2017 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey were released by NIDA-funded researchers at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and overall the news is encouraging.
NIDA’S Avant-Garde Award Competition Continues to Foster Transformative HIV/AIDS Research
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NIH-funded science continues to make great strides in the fight against HIV. To foster such research, 10 years ago NIDA created its Avant-Garde Award competition to fund bold projects that...
Mobilizing Citizen Science to Address the Overdose Epidemic
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Social media and crowdsourcing apps could be particularly useful for gathering and sharing information in real time about overdoses and using that information to prevent overdose deaths, thereby translating "citizen...
Addressing the Opioid Crisis Means Confronting Socioeconomic Disparities
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When we speak of addiction as a chronic disorder of the brain, it thus includes an understanding that some individuals are more susceptible to drug use and addiction than others.
New Medication Formulations Could Quickly Make a Difference for Treating Opioid Addiction
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As Francis Collins and I wrote in May, NIH and NIDA are committed to an"all scientific hands on deck" effort to end the opioid crisis in America by halving the...
The Concerning Link Between Inadequate Sleep and Adolescent Substance Use
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Researchers have found striking links between insufficient sleep and a range of adverse outcomes in adolescents, including obesity, poor school performance, and behavioral problems including substance use.
“All Scientific Hands on Deck” to End the Opioid Crisis
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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...
Smoking Cessation May Improve Behavioral Health Conditions (CRAN Blog)
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Cigarette smoking remains the single largest preventable cause of death and disease in the United States, responsible for over 480,000 deaths a year. Even though smoking has been decreasing overall...
Opioid Use Disorders and Suicide: A Hidden Tragedy (Guest Blog)
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In 2015, over 33,000 Americans died from opioids—either prescription drugs or heroin or, in many cases, more powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Hidden behind the terrible epidemic of opioid overdose...
Addressing America’s Fentanyl Crisis
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Every day, 91* Americans fatally overdose on an opioid drug. It may be a prescription analgesic or heroin—4-8 percent of people who misuse painkillers transition to heroin—but increasingly it is...
NASEM Report Recommends Removing Barriers to Cannabis Research
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The new report is based on reviews of research on both the cannabis plant itself and its constituents, but its conclusions are substantially similar to the 1999 report: While cannabis...
Improving Access to Substance Use Disorder Treatment in Baltimore City (Guest Blog)
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Tackling the opioid crisis and overdose epidemic in our nation is a task that involves partnerships among stakeholders at all levels: federal, state, and local governments and other organizations and...
Taking Stock of NIDA’s Achievements and Looking to the Future
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The need for better substance use disorder treatments, better diagnostic methods, and better prevention strategies has never been greater. The beginning of a new year gives us an opportunity to...
As Some States Implement New Marijuana Laws, Science Should Guide Public Health Policy
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After the election on November 8, marijuana is now or will soon be legal for adult recreational use in eight states plus the District of Columbia. Careful thought should be...
Syringe-Exchange Programs Are Part of Effective HIV Prevention
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One of the best available strategies for reducing the spread of HIV among drug users is syringe-exchange programs (also called syringe service programs); their effectiveness has been proven through abundant...
The Surgeon General’s Report: Facing Addiction in America
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Today marks, I hope, another turning point in our country's health, as Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health...
Rethinking How We Talk About Addiction
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People with substance use disorders and other mental health issues face greater stigma than those with other illnesses. Many of the addiction-related terms widely used in our society—even in the...
Medical Marijuana Might Not Be a Safe Nausea Solution for Pregnant Women
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Medical marijuana is becoming more widely accepted and it is being used for a wide range of conditions. Scientific evidence of its effectiveness for most indications is still slim or...
Participant Recruitment Now Underway for Landmark Study on Adolescents
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The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, which has been in the planning phase for just under a year, is now recruiting more than 10,000 9- and 10-year-olds at 19...
Responsibly and Sensitively Addressing Chronic Pain Amid an Opioid Crisis
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Last week, the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, sent a personal letter to more than 2.3 million health care practitioners and public health leaders, seeking their help to address the...
Psychiatrists Should Take a More Active Role in Treating Pain
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The recommendation to move away from opioids as the first line of treating many types of chronic noncancer pain has generated an understandable outcry from some pain patients who fear...
Probuphine: A Game-Changer in Fighting Opioid Dependence
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Medications like buprenorphine and methadone have revolutionized the treatment of people with opioid use disorder, including those with severe disorders (addiction).
New Regulations on Flavored Tobacco Products and e-Cigarettes Will Protect Public Health
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Despite great successes in reducing tobacco use over the past five decades, smoking leads to more than 480,000 deaths in the United States annually and remains the number-one preventable cause...
The CDC Provides Crucial New Guidance on Opioids and Pain
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Although these medications have a legitimate and important role in the treatment of severe acute pain and some severe chronic pain conditions, it is clear that they are also overprescribed...
A Major Step Forward for Addiction Medicine
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A major milestone was reached on March 14, 2016, when the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) formally announced recognition of the field of Addiction Medicine as a medical subspecialty.
Intervening Early to Prevent Substance Use Disorders
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The brain is an organ that adapts in both short- and long-term ways to its environment, and prevention science over the past few decades has shown clearly that a person's...
NIDA's 2016-2020 Strategic Plan
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Over the last four decades, NIDA-supported research has revolutionized our understanding of drug use and addiction, driving a new understanding of the neurobiological, genetic, epigenetic, social, and environmental factors that...
Saving a “Lost Generation”: The Need to Prevent Drug and Alcohol Abuse in Midlife
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By Dr. Nora Volkow (NIDA) and Dr. George Koob (NIAAA)- We have long expected to see increasing substance use in middle and later life with the aging of baby boomers—...
Listening to the Dead
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Guest blog by Bill Williams - a reminder of the devastating and incomprehensible experiences faced by families who are fighting the disease of addiction.
Encouraging News from Monitoring the Future
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Revealing the results of the annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey of drug use and attitudes among American middle- and high-school students is an annual mid-December ritual at NIDA. This...
A Personal Story of Despair and Hope, and the Origin of the Jacob P. Waletzky Award
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A guest blog by Jeremy Waletzky, M.D. Every year since 2003, NIDA has honored a young career scientist with the Society for Neuroscience Jacob P. Waletzky Memorial Award for Innovative...
NARCAN Nasal Spray: Life-Saving Science at NIDA
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The FDA announced its approval of the NARCAN Nasal Spray, an intranasal naloxone formula that can immediately restore normal breathing in a person overdosing on prescription opioids or heroin and...
New Study Shows Benefits of Reducing Nicotine in Cigarettes
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Can the addictiveness of cigarettes be minimized by reducing their nicotine content? This idea was first proposed as a public health measure two decades ago, but when the Food and...
Grant Awards Mark the Launch of Landmark Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study
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The teen years are the period of highest risk for substance use and for the development of other behavioral disorders, and they are also a period when the brain is...
Addiction Science Can Help Us Understand the Bee Crisis
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Recent research now suggests that bees may be preferentially drawn to foods laced with pesticides as a result of reward mechanisms. It is a fascinating lesson in how knowledge gleaned...
Researching Marijuana for Therapeutic Purposes: The Potential Promise of Cannabidiol (CBD)
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Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to testify before the Senate on cannabidiol, or CBD—one of the main active ingredients in the marijuana plant, and a compound around which...
The Importance of Integrating HIV and Addiction Treatment
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Great progress has been made in reducing the number of new HIV infections and transforming the disease into a manageable and livable condition, but we still have some way to...
Addiction Is a Disease of Free Will
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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...
Seeking Input from the Community on NIDA’s Scientific Reorganization
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"Advisory Council periodically reviews the various programs and Divisions within the Institute to ensure they best reflect NIDA" capacities and mission. At our May 2015 Council meeting, an Advisory Council...
The Major HIV Outbreak in Indiana Was Preventable
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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...
Taking a Science-informed Approach to Medical Marijuana
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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.
The 2015 Prescription Drug Abuse Summit
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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...
HHS Announces Actions to Attack the Opioid Abuse Crisis
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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...
Knowns and Unknowns about e-Cigarettes and Teens
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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...
Brain in Progress: Why Teens Can’t Always Resist Temptation
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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...
Good News from Monitoring the Future 2014
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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...
Reproducibility Issues May Be Science’s Growing Pains
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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...
Marijuana Advertising and the Power of Conditioning
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As social acceptance and public policy around marijuana shift, and especially if legalized recreational use becomes more widespread, we will need to consider the influence and potential regulation of its...
Opioids and Chronic Pain—A Gap in Our Knowledge
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Opioid prescriptions have increased three-fold over the past two decades, and we have seen how this skyrocketing availability of medications has helped create a new drug abusing population, some of...
Substance Use in American Indian Youth is Worse than We Thought
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We have long known that American Indian communities are particularly vulnerable to problems with substance use, which are tied in part to limited socioeconomic opportunity. But because national surveys fail...
Science Should Guide Marijuana Policy
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In a series of recent articles, The New York Times' editors presented a case for repealing the federal ban on marijuana, including the disproportionate impact of current marijuana laws on...
Seeking Input from the Research Community on the Upcoming Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Substance Use
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As we wrote in early May, the time is ripe for a large prospective cohort study that will comprehensively assess the effects of adolescent substance use on the developing brain.
National HIV Testing Day, June 27, 2014
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Almost 1.1 million Americans are currently living with the HIV virus, and nearly a sixth of those don't even know they are infected. That means they aren't getting needed treatment...
What Can We Do About the Heroin Overdose Epidemic?
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A striking new dimension of our nation's ongoing opioid epidemic is the escalating number of deaths from heroin overdose.
Increasing Diversity in Research
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Diversity enriches any workforce, and that is especially true of science. People with different backgrounds and experiences may think in different ways, produce different ideas and insights, and approach scientific...
National Longitudinal Study of the Neurodevelopmental Consequences of Substance Use
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A major new longitudinal study aims to examine the effects of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs on the developing brain.
National RX Drug Abuse Summit
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The Summit brings together people on all sides of the problem, including representatives from government agencies, law enforcement, and the treatment world.
UNODC Recommends Treating Addiction as Health, Not Legal, Issue
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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...
Naloxone—A Potential Lifesaver
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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...
Addiction and Free Choice
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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...
Another Reminder of the Terrible Toll of Addiction
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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...
National Drug Facts Week
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This week—January 27 through February 2—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...
Monitoring the Future Reveals Both Encouraging and Discouraging Trends
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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...
Remembering Nancy Mello, an Addiction Research Visionary
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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...
World AIDS Day 2013—Addiction Treatment Supports AIDS Treatment
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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...
Talking to the Dalai Lama about Addiction Science
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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...
Tobacco-Related Mortality and Mental Illness
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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...
Support for Basic Science
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In tough fiscal times, scientists from a wide range fields worry that their area of research will be disproportionately hurt. As the Director of NIDA, my job is to ensure...
Improving Reproducibility and Transparency in Biomedical Research
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An alarming phenomenon in science that has come to our attention is the failure of many published results to reproduce.
National Recovery Month
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September is National Recovery Month-an annual recognition of the fact that millions of Americans suffer from addiction and other mental disorders, which can be successfully treated, allowing people to live...
Anti-retroviral Drug Prophylaxis to Prevent HIV Transmission
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Current prevention strategies have reduced the incidence of HIV worldwide, but that decline has slowed in recent years. We need new prevention strategies if we are to realize President Obama's...
NIDA Prescription Drug CMEs Have Been a Great Success
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The epidemic of prescription opioid abuse in this country is linked partly to the dramatic rise in prescriptions for these medicines over the last two decades, as well as the...
FDA calls for public input on regulating menthol in tobacco products
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Menthol is a popular additive in cigarettes, potentially making them more palatable, but its use in these products is currently unregulate
Preventing HIV/AIDS in Vietnam
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In April of this year I visited Vietnam along with Jacques Normand, Director of NIDA’s HIV Research Program, to foster research collaborations between NIDA and Vietnamese scientists on issues of...
World Hepatitis Day
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Today is World Hepatitis Day, an annual event started by the World Hepatitis Alliance in 2008 to raise awareness about hepatitis in order to better prevent its spread and improve...
Prescription Painkillers Are Claiming More Women’s Lives
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More than 6,600 women died after overdosing on prescription painkillers in 2010—a 400% increase over 1999.
Past Messages from the Director
2013
- Marijuana's Lasting Effects on the Brain (March 2013)
- Challenging Marijuana Myths (February 2013)
- Overdose Deaths Among Homeless Persons (January 2013)
- From Abuse to Addiction (January 2013)
2012
- NIDA in New Orleans—More Highlights from Our Mini-Convention (December 2012)
- An AIDS-Free Generation (November 2012)
- Addressing Drug Abuse in the Armed Forces (November 2012)
- The Many Faces of Glia (November 2012)
- The Impact of Smoking Reduction Programs (March 2012)
- Brain Awareness Week (March 2012)
- NIDA's Funding Priorities in Tough Fiscal Times (February 2012)
2011
- HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse - World AIDS Day (November 2011)
- Recovery Month (September 2011)
- The Passing of Dr. Joseph V. Brady (August 2011)
- National HIV Testing Day: June 27 (June 2011)
- Vaccines (May 2011)
- NIDA Funding Priorities (May 2011)
- The Passing of Former NIDA Director Bob Schuster (February 2011)
- "Bath Salts" - Emerging and Dangerous Products (February 2011)
- Remembering Dr. Bruce Rounsaville (January 2011)
2010
- HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse (December 2010)
- Important Treatment Advances for Addiction to Heroin and other Opiates (October 2010)
- A Concerted Look at the Resting Brain: Announcing the International Neuroimaging Data-Sharing Initiative (October 2010)
- Helping Doctors Become First Responders to Substance Abuse (April 2010)
2009
- NIDA's 35th Anniversary: Science Focused on Solutions (December 2009)
- Substance Abuse Among Troops, Veterans, and Their Families (December 2009)
- Women's Health Week May 10 - May 16, 2009 (May 2009)
- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (February 2009)
2008
- World AIDS Day, 2008 (December 2008)
- NIDA Announces DrugPubs - A New Research Dissemination Center (September 2008)
- Methadone - Appropriate Use Provides Valuable Treatment for Pain and Addiction (August 2008)
- Mourning the Passing of Dr. William Pollin (January 2008)
2007
- Women's Health Week May 13 - May 19, 2007 (May 2007)
- Development of a Nicotine Vaccine (May 2007)
- Medical and Health Professionals (February 2007)
2006
- Statement by NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, M.D., in response to a study published in the Journal Psychopharmacology on July 11, 2006. Study authors: R.R. Griffiths, et al. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. (July 2006)
- Fentanyl Use in Combination With Street Drugs Leading to Death in Some Cases (June 2006)
2005
- Inhalant Abuse is an Emerging Public Health Problem (October 2005)
- The Effects of Stress on Drug Abuse After Katrina (September 2005)
- Drugged Driving Can Be Harmful to Your Health (August 2005)
- Communities Across the Country Are Trying to Respond to Increased Abuse of Methamphetamine, a Powerfully Addictive Stimulant (April 2005)
- Consequences of the Abuse of Anabolic Steroids (March 2005)