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‘Resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? A select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in North America

In the early 2000s, increasing prevalence of psycho-stimulant (e.g., crack/cocaine, methamphetamine) use and related harms, including severe adverse health outcomes, was observed among - mostly marginalized - populations of persons using illicit drugs in North America, underscoring an urgent need fo...

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Autores principales: Fischer, Benedikt, O’Keefe-Markman, Caroline, Lee, Angelica (Min-Hye), Daldegan-Bueno, Dimitri
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33588896
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13011-021-00350-5
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author Fischer, Benedikt
O’Keefe-Markman, Caroline
Lee, Angelica (Min-Hye)
Daldegan-Bueno, Dimitri
author_facet Fischer, Benedikt
O’Keefe-Markman, Caroline
Lee, Angelica (Min-Hye)
Daldegan-Bueno, Dimitri
author_sort Fischer, Benedikt
collection PubMed
description In the early 2000s, increasing prevalence of psycho-stimulant (e.g., crack/cocaine, methamphetamine) use and related harms, including severe adverse health outcomes, was observed among - mostly marginalized - populations of persons using illicit drugs in North America, underscoring an urgent need for interventions options towards improved prevention and treatment. By about 2010, however, the ‘opioid crisis’, featuring unprecedented use and public health burden, had accelerated into full force in North America, largely muting attention to the psycho-stimulant issue until recently. Recent surveillance data on drug use and related mortality/morbidity from the present decade has documented a marked resurgence of psycho-stimulant use and harms especially in at-risk populations, commonly in direct combination with opioids, across North America, resulting in a ‘twin epidemic’ comprised of opioids and psycho-stimulants We briefly review select epidemiological data indicators for these developments from the United States and Canada; in the latter jurisdiction, related evidence has been less prevalent and systematic but corroborating the same trends. Evidently, the (widely ongoing) focus on the ‘opioid epidemic’ as a ‘mono-type’ drug problem has become an anachronism that requires urgent and appropriate correction. We then briefly consider existing, evidence-based options for – prevention and treatment – interventions targeting psycho-stimulant use and harms, which are substantially more limited and/or less efficacious than those available for problematic opioid use, while presenting major gaps and challenges. The observed resurgence of psycho-stimulants may, indirectly, relate to recent efforts towards curtailing (medical) opioid availability, thereby accelerating demand and supply for both illicit opioids and psycho-stimulants. The presently unfolding ‘twin epidemic’ of opioids and psycho-stimulants, combined with limited intervention resources, presents an acute challenge for public health and may crucially undermine actively extensive efforts to reduce opioid-related health harms in North America.
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spelling pubmed-78837582021-02-16 ‘Resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? A select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in North America Fischer, Benedikt O’Keefe-Markman, Caroline Lee, Angelica (Min-Hye) Daldegan-Bueno, Dimitri Subst Abuse Treat Prev Policy Commentary In the early 2000s, increasing prevalence of psycho-stimulant (e.g., crack/cocaine, methamphetamine) use and related harms, including severe adverse health outcomes, was observed among - mostly marginalized - populations of persons using illicit drugs in North America, underscoring an urgent need for interventions options towards improved prevention and treatment. By about 2010, however, the ‘opioid crisis’, featuring unprecedented use and public health burden, had accelerated into full force in North America, largely muting attention to the psycho-stimulant issue until recently. Recent surveillance data on drug use and related mortality/morbidity from the present decade has documented a marked resurgence of psycho-stimulant use and harms especially in at-risk populations, commonly in direct combination with opioids, across North America, resulting in a ‘twin epidemic’ comprised of opioids and psycho-stimulants We briefly review select epidemiological data indicators for these developments from the United States and Canada; in the latter jurisdiction, related evidence has been less prevalent and systematic but corroborating the same trends. Evidently, the (widely ongoing) focus on the ‘opioid epidemic’ as a ‘mono-type’ drug problem has become an anachronism that requires urgent and appropriate correction. We then briefly consider existing, evidence-based options for – prevention and treatment – interventions targeting psycho-stimulant use and harms, which are substantially more limited and/or less efficacious than those available for problematic opioid use, while presenting major gaps and challenges. The observed resurgence of psycho-stimulants may, indirectly, relate to recent efforts towards curtailing (medical) opioid availability, thereby accelerating demand and supply for both illicit opioids and psycho-stimulants. The presently unfolding ‘twin epidemic’ of opioids and psycho-stimulants, combined with limited intervention resources, presents an acute challenge for public health and may crucially undermine actively extensive efforts to reduce opioid-related health harms in North America. BioMed Central 2021-02-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7883758/ /pubmed/33588896 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13011-021-00350-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Commentary
Fischer, Benedikt
O’Keefe-Markman, Caroline
Lee, Angelica (Min-Hye)
Daldegan-Bueno, Dimitri
‘Resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? A select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in North America
title ‘Resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? A select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in North America
title_full ‘Resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? A select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in North America
title_fullStr ‘Resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? A select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in North America
title_full_unstemmed ‘Resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? A select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in North America
title_short ‘Resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? A select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in North America
title_sort ‘resurgent’, ‘twin’ or ‘silent’ epidemic? a select data overview and observations on increasing psycho-stimulant use and harms in north america
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33588896
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13011-021-00350-5
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