Videos

As a fire chief and first responder, Jan Rader has spent her career saving lives. But when the opioid epidemic hit her town, she realized they needed to take a brand-new approach to life-saving. In this powerful, hopeful talk, Rader shows what it's like on the front lines of this crisis -- and how her community is taking an unusual new approach to treating substance-abuse disorder that starts with listening.

The United States accounts for five percent of the world's population but consumes almost 70 percent of the total global opioid supply, creating an epidemic that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths each year. How did we get here, and what can we do about it? In this personal talk, Travis Rieder recounts the painful, often-hidden struggle of opioid withdrawal and reveals how doctors who are quick to prescribe (and overprescribe) opioids aren't equipped with the tools to eventually get people off the meds.

Addiction to opioids is now officially a national emergency. But why are addiction rates spiking and what can we do about it? Neuroscientist Rachel Wurzman shares new research about how the brain reacts to opioids, replacing the sense of community and belonging human beings are losing. We are beginning to understand that solving the opioid epidemic will require us to focus on social factors surrounding those addicted. Dr. Rachel Wurzman is a Fellow with the Center for Neuroscience and Society, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Neurology with the Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation at the University of Pennsylvania.

As the U.S. and Canada struggle to tame the epidemic of opioid abuse, the city of Portsmouth, Ohio, shows just how difficult a battle it can be in smaller communities.

2016 was an unprecedented year for opioid overdoses nationwide. Since 1999, opioid overdoses and the amount of prescription opioids sold in the U.S. have quadrupled, creating an epidemic that spans all ages, communities, and demographics. Ohio can be considered the "ground zero" of this epidemic. The number of fatal overdoses have quadrupled in the past decade.