Opioids: Combating addiction with chemistry (webinar)

The Department of Chemistry and Physics, the Wabash Valley Local Section of the American Chemical Society and Indiana State ACS student members will be sponsoring a live ACS webinar discussing the opioid crisis and chemistry behind addiction, opioids and antidotes for opiate overdose. 

Addiction is a major public health problem in the US and opioid addiction, in particular, has been front and center because of the substantial increase in addiction and overdose deaths in the past several years. In 2015 alone, 33,000 Americans died from opioid overdose, nearly 2/3 of all overdose deaths.

 The coming of synthetic, highly potent opioids such as fentanyl and carfentanyl which are hundreds to thousands of times more potent than heroin have contributed to this spike in overdose deaths. In this webinar, the chemistry behind the epidemic will be discussed along with ways to combat this menace. Interested faculty, students and the public are invited to attend.