substance use disorder

After a long night of wiping off seats and sweeping up plastic cups at one of Los Angeles’ largest stadiums, Abraham Gomez rushes home to change his clothes, then hits the open highway just a little after sunrise.

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services will hear about every child born in the state that is exposed to drugs at birth, thanks to a bill signed into law this month by Gov.

By all outward appearances, I grew up in a normal American family. My parents had respectable jobs in construction and nursing, a four-bedroom home, family dog and a playhouse my father built from the ground up.

A policy brief issued in July by the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) forcefully develops the case for trauma-informed approaches to address the opioid crisis—to prevent and treat addiction—based on strong evidence that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at the root of the crisis.

Back in 2014, voters in California strongly supported a ballot measure that hoped to siphon away funds earmarked for incarceration and invest them in community-based approaches to prevention instead. Prop. 47 downgraded some nonviolent drug and property offenses from felonies to misdemeanors and allowed the state to channel the cost savings into programs for mental health, job training, substance use disorder treatment, housing support and truancy prevention.