Opioid Awareness [Buffalo Magazine]

A special issue of Buffalo Magazine focusing on the opioid epidemic includes interviews with local experts about the future of the crisis, among them, Richard D. Blondell, MD, professor of family medicine and vice chair of addiction medicine, who said the most critical issue in the local opioid crisis is the over-prescription of opioid medications. “Physicians and other clinicians now prescribe three to four times more opioids than they did 20 years ago. There is a direct correlation between the level of prescriptions with the number of opioid overdose deaths and with admissions to drug addiction treatment programs,” he said. An additional article about the locations of medication drop boxes in Erie County includes Bissell Hall on the UB North Campus.