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This project is supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, but the information on this site has not been reviewed by NIDA and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute.

News from the Nodes

Western States and Big Southwest Nodes

The Western States Node and Big South/West Nodes cosponsored a presentation on the increase of fentanyl on the West Coast. Fentanyl deaths increased 10-fold from 2013 to 2018, but the Western US was insulated from the drug which was concentrated in the Midwest, Appalachia, and New England. This presentation by Chelsea Shover of Stanford University of the Western States Node, presents evidence that fentanyl is unfortunately spreading west. She and her team systematically searched jurisdictions west of the Mississippi River for publicly available data on fentanyl-related deaths from 2019 and 2020. This allowed identification of fentanyl-related mortality rate and proportion of fatal heroin, stimulant, and prescription pill overdoses involving fentanyl to a much more recent date than CDC has yet reported.

Seven jurisdictions had publicly available fentanyl death data through December 2019 or later. All reported increased fentanyl deaths over the study period. Their collective contribution to national synthetic narcotics mortality increased 371% from 2017 to 2019. Available 2020 data shows a 63% growth in fentanyl-mortality over 2019. Fentanyl-involvement in heroin, stimulant, and prescription pill deaths has substantially grown. After Dr. Shover’s presentation we discussed how we can respond as clinicians, researchers, and policymakers.

For information about the presentation, please contact Jesse Guyer (guyerj@ohsu.edu).

Protocol Update

CTN-0100 (RDD)

In CTN-0100 (RDD) news: Wave 1 National training for RDD is taking place this week! Wave 1 sites, including Adapt (Oregon), Bellevue (New York), Chestnut Ridge Center (West Virginia), Gateway (Florida), Gibson Recovery Center (Missouri), Liberation Programs (Connecticut), Mountain Manor (Maryland), Square Medical Group (Massachusetts), SSTAR (Massachusetts), and UNI at the University of Utah, are all participating in a virtual Investigator’s meeting. Recruitment is expected to start in early 2021. Wave 2 sites will begin site readiness activities in March 2021.

In other study milestones: National Site Calls began in September, and Protocol v2.0 was approved by the sIRB (BRANY) in October.

For study information, please contact RDD at rdd@nyulangone.org.

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New CTN Protocols!

Several new protocols have been added to the CTN Dissemination Library's Protocols section, as well as to NIDA's website for the CTN. Check them out to see what's coming up for RRTC's and CTPs in the network!