NIDA Event Educates on Opioids

Dr. Rita Valentino (at right, onscreen), director of the Division of Neuroscience and Behavior at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, recently presented as an expert on a closed-circuit event to chemistry students called “Opioids: Combatting Addiction with Chemistry.” The event, part of the American Chemical Society’s “Program-in-a-Box” series, explained what makes opioids so addictive, the treatments and medications used to help those who suffer and profiled the work that chemists are doing to make prescription painkillers safer and harder to abuse. More than 6,100 students took in the event, including 14 chemists (above) from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez.