Substances sold in gas stations and convenience stores are accelerating the drug overdose epidemic, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Tianeptine is a drug that likely can be found in your local gas stations, along with the caffeine bombs and other mind-altering substances. Michael Fingerhood, a substance use disorder expert at Johns Hopkins, says while tianeptine is just the latest entry to this lineup, it’s been preceded by kratom, implicated in lots of ED visits. 

Fingerhood: Kratom has been around for a while. T here's always a question of what we should do with kratom and you see shops with kratom in them they advertise in the open epic signs best kratom. Kratom has some opioid like activity but on social media there's a big pro kratom population that tout how useful it is and there are people who say well I got off fentanyl by using kratom, but then kratom has risk too, similar to how it used some of the opioid use disorder.  :27

Fingerhood is stymied by the legality of selling what are frankly drugs, packaged attractively and named enticingly, at gas stations and convenience stores, but is skeptical about the ability of any authority to provide oversight. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.