Emergency department | Addiction Treatment Strategies

The number of narcotic-related emergency room visits in New York City jumped 40 percent between 2004 and 2009, according to a survey by the city’s Department of Health. Painkillers are now the second-most commonly used illegal drugs, behind marijuana, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The…

 
Nearly three-fourths of ecstasy-related emergency department (ED) visits in 2009 also involved other drugs, according to data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN). Of the estimated 22,816 ecstasy-related ED visits in 2009, approximately one-fourth (26%) involved ecstasy only….

A new national study shows that from 2005 to 2009 there was a 55 percent increase in emergency department visits for drug related suicide attempts by men aged 21 to 34 — from 19,024 visits in 2005 to 29,407 visits in 2009. In 2009, there were a total of 77,971 emergency department…

A new national study shows that from 2005 to 2009 (the most recent year with available figures) there was a 49-percent increase in emergency department visits for drug related suicide attempts by women aged 50 and older — from 11,235 visits in 2005 to 16,757 in 2009. This increase…

By PAUL CHRISTOPHER, M.D.
He was the first patient of the day, dropped off at the emergency room by the police or a family member — a man in his 50s, unshaved, stumbling, engulfed in the pungent aroma of alcohol.
When he blew into the breathalyzer’s strawlike tube, the readout was…

The patient is a 27-year-old stock exchange worker who presents to the ED with a complaint of anxiety, chest pain, sweating, palpitations and a feeling of “paranoia and impending doom” following the recreational ingestion of “bath salts” two hours prior at a company party.
His pulse…