LAUSR

Opioid medications are widely prescribed to alleviate pain and suffering for millions of patients, but the utility of these drugs is limited by serious adverse effects including abuse liability, dependence, and overdose. At present, the non-medical (i.e., recreational) abuse of opioids is a worldwide public health threat. In the United States alone, more than 47,000 opioid-related overdose deaths occurred during 2017 (Scholl et al., 2018), and most of these fatalities were associated with synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl and its various analogs. Fentanyl is a mu-opioid receptor (MOP) agonist that is 50-100 times more potent than morphine as an analgesic agent. The origins of the current opioid crisis are complex, and effective solutions will require multidisciplinary cooperation among law enforcement personnel, first responders, treatment providers, policymakers, and scientists (Madras, 2018). To this end, basic research in pharmacology can provide critical information for addressing the opioid crisis (Baumann et al., 2018). In this Special Issue of Neuropharmacology, entitled "New Vistas in Opioid Pharmacology", we bring together an international panel of experts who report research findings related to three topics: 1] neuropharmacology of heroin, fentanyl and its analogs; 2] development of safer pain medications; and 3] novel pharmacotherapies for substance use disorders.