Beyond Opioids: Shining Lights on Less Visible Prescription Drug Epidemics (2018)

Opioids have attracted much of the public attention given to drug abuse in recent years, but they are far from the only pharmaceuticals that can be abused. Nora Volkow, whose research helped establish drug addiction as a disease of the brain, will talk about less-publicized prescription drug epidemics. Overdose deaths from benzodiazepines, used to treat anxiety and insomnia, have jumped sevenfold in a short few years. Prescriptions for amphetamines, commonly used for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, have skyrocketed. Volkow talks about how we got here and what can be done.