Opioids are powerful medicines that have revolutionized the treatment of otherwise debilitating pain – but they are also powerfully addictive and toxic, killing almost 50,000 Canadians in the past decade. In this seminar, we will discuss the history of opioid medicines from morphine and heroin to modern-day painkillers including oxycodone; how these medicines affect the brain and body to relieve pain but also result in addiction and overdose; risk factors that increase the likelihood of misuse and addiction and the importance of prevention strategies; treatments for opioid addiction; and how the community can play a role in ending the opioid epidemic through education, harm reduction strategies and reducing stigma.
About the Speaker
Dr. Bruce McKay is the Dean of the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, and Dean of the Wilfrid Laurier International College, at Wilfrid Laurier University. Dr. McKay’s research focuses on recreational psychoactive drug use, with particular interests in trends in undergraduate student alcohol and other drug use (with studies emphasizing cannabis, MDMA, nootropics and the use of psychedelics), relationships between alcohol and drug use and academic outcomes, the reasons underpinning recreational alcohol and drug use by students, harmful outcomes associated with excessive alcohol and drug use, and harm reduction. Dr. McKay completed his PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Calgary, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Baylor College of Medicine.
Presented by Laurier