Tag: opioids

How team science is helping to detect dangerous drugs and save lives

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By Dr Jenny Scott, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol

In 2019, while working at the University of Bath, I had a conversation with Professor Chris Pudney that would spark an idea that is now saving lives. We met at a research “sandpit” – an event designed to bring together researchers from different fields to explore new ideas. We started talking about the growing dangers faced by people who use drugs, especially in an unregulated and increasingly toxic drug market.

That conversation led to the formation of Team Harm Reduction – a group of scientists, clinicians, and researchers working together to tackle drug-related harm. By combining expertise in chemistry, artificial intelligence, mathematics, pharmacy, and intervention development, alongside my own experience in substance use services, we set out to create tools that could detect harmful substances quickly and accurately.

A crisis that

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Understanding the lethal interactions between benzodiazepines and opioids to develop new harm reduction strategies

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By Dr Jo Kesten

A multidisciplinary project to understand why taking benzodiazepines or z-drugs and opioids together leads to so many deaths, brought together qualitative researchers with other specialists. One paper from the study has now been published in the Harm Reduction Journal, a pre-print for another paper is available and a third is underway. Here the qualitative team discuss their findings.

The number of people dying because of drugs is rising in the UK, especially in Scotland. Many of these deaths involve a combination of opioids (heroin or methadone) and benzodiazepines or z-drugs (sedatives often used to treat anxiety and insomnia), which are either prescribed or obtained illegally.

We set out to understand how benzodiazepines or z-drugs and opioids work together and why this makes a fatal overdose more likely. We aimed to achieve this first by talking to people about their use of benzodiazepines or z-drugs and … Read more

From the laboratory to the street: doing multidisciplinary research to understand the rising numbers of deaths involving opioids and benzodiazepines

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A University of Bristol multidisciplinary team from Bristol and Bath University has been working to understand the increase in deaths from taking both opioids and benzodiazepines (benzos). Here they reflect on how this approach has enhanced their research and made it more useful.

The problem

Drug use is a leading cause of premature death in many countries. Such deaths are increasing.

There are many reasons for this increase, including changes in the types of people who use drugs, and the rise in the use of fentanyls and other synthetic opioids.

Taking more than one drug at a time is another cause. For example, taking benzodiazepine (diazepam, etizolam, bromazolam) or z-drugs (zolpidem, zopiclone) along with opioids (heroin, methadone, buprenorphine) increases the chances of overdose and death.

Although many epidemiological and post-mortem studies have identified this risk, we still don’t know why combining these drugs increases mortality.

As a team our expertise … Read more