Kratom Lords

To end the drug crisis, bring addiction out of the shadows Far too often, shame and stigma fuel addiction and prevent treatment, argues Nora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. But replacing judgment with compassion can save lives. When I was six years old, as I was having dinner with my mother and three sisters, my mother received a telegram. She broke down crying as she read it. Her father — my grandfather — had died. In her grief, she locked herself in her room and would not let me console her. The memory of my inability to relieve my mother’s suffering still haunts me. My sisters and I were led to believe that our grandfather had died of a heart attack. It was only decades later, when I had already been an addiction researcher for several years and my mother was herself dying, that she revealed the truth: My grandfather had had an alcohol addiction. Unable to stop drinking, he had taken his own life in a final moment of futility and shame. People...

WEST LAFAYETTE – The 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that 14.5 million people ages 12 and older have alcohol use disorder, or AUD. This represents 5.3% of that population, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Arryn Blaine, a doctoral candidate in Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy, conducts research in Richard Van Rijn’s laboratory on compounds that may be able to treat alcohol use disorder. The compounds are based on alkaloids found in the kratom plant. (Purdue Research Foundation photo/Steve Martin) Researchers in Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy, the Purdue Institute for Drug Discovery and Washington University in St. Louis are synthesizing compounds to treat people affected by AUD. The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Pharmacology. Richard Van Rijn, adjunct associate professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology in Purdue’s College of Pharmacy, leads the r...