The American opioid crisis will not happen in Spain

Iván Darío Montoya, an expert at the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the United States, has travelled to Alcoy to talk about the epidemic and the crisis of opiates in the United States.

“The United States is immersed in an opiate epidemic that we hope will not reach Spain.” Opioids are among some of the most common analgesics, but also illegal substances such as heroin, are a real threat.

In America 50,000 opiates are consumed per day a situation that has other countries worried that it could also become a problem for them.

The clinical director of the research area of the NIH (National Institute on Drug Abuse), located in Maryland, Iván Darío Montoya, was this Thursday at the Ivam Cada Alcoi to give a lecture.

“Patients have become addicted to opiates because of the ease of getting them,” he says. “Spain has a protective factor, since it has a health system that is comprehensive, and a global model.”

Montoya also talked about an experimental project being developed by the US National Institute on vaccines to help prevent addiction, for example, cocaine.