Christopher Blazes, M.D.

  • Associate Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine

Biography

Dr. Blazes is triple board-certified in psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, and emergency medicine and is the director of the OHSU addiction psychiatry Fellowship. He is a clinician educator whose practice is based out of the Portland VA Medical Center. He lectures widely and publishes on such topics as benzodiazepines, synthetic fentanyl analogues, buprenorphine, and the neurobiology of addiction and recovery.

He is the director of the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship at OHSU.

Dr Blazes also is the creator and course director of the “Advanced Addiction Psychotherapy Curriculum” This is a monthly seminar presented live to Addiction Psychiatry fellows and faculty at programs throughout the country and then recorded and archived for future viewing. This is in collaboration with NYU and the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.

Education and training

  • Degrees

    • M.D., 1997, University of Rochester

  • Residency

    • Emergency Medicine, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2001
    • Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY, 1997

  • Fellowship

    • Addiction Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, 1998

  • Certifications

    • American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (Psychiatry)
    • American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (Addiction Psychiatry)
    • American Board of Emergency Medicine

Areas of interest

  • Benzodiazepines, acute and post-acute withdrawal
  • Strategies for de-prescribing
  • The neurobiology of Addiction and Recovery
  • Residential and long term treatment facilities

Publications

Selected publications

  • Peng, L., Meeks, T. W., & Blazes, C. K. (2022). Complex persistent benzodiazepine dependence—When benzodiazepine deprescribing goes awry. JAMA Psychiatry, 79(7), 639–640. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.1150
  • Blazes, C. K., & Morrow, J. D. (2020). Reconsidering the usefulness of adding naloxone to buprenorphine. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 549272. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.549272
  • Gregg, J., Hartley, J., Lawrence, D., Risser, A., & Blazes, C. (2023). The naloxone component of buprenorphine/naloxone: Discouraging misuse, but at what cost? Journal of Addiction Medicine, 17(1), 7-9. https://doi.org/10.1097/ADM.0000000000001030
  • Zweben, J. E., Sorensen, J. L., Shingle, M., & Blazes, C. K. (2021). Discontinuing methadone and buprenorphine: A review and clinical challenges. Journal of Addiction Medicine, 15(6), 454-460. https://doi.org/10.1097/ADM.0000000000000789
  • Priest, K. C., Balasanova, A. A., Levander, X. A., Chan, B., Blazes, C. K., Mahan, J., Brown, J., Mahoney, S., Peng, L., Mahoney, S., Lundy, T., & Englander, H. (2023). Caring for hospitalized adults with methamphetamine use disorder: A proposed clinical roadmap. The American Journal of Medicine, 136(6), 507-509. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2023.01.012
  • Hartley, J., Rieke, E., Blazes, C. K., Smith, B., & Gregg, J. (2023). Successful transition from fentanyl to buprenorphine in a community-based withdrawal management setting. Journal of Addiction Medicine, 17(1), 117-118. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1097/ADM.0000000000001014
  • Shin, S. S., LaForge, K., Stack, E., Pope, J., Leichtling, G., Larsen, J. E., Leahy, J. M., Seaman, A., Hoover, D., Chisholm, L., Blazes, C., Baker, R., Byers, M., Branson, K., & Korthuis, P. T. (2022).“It wasn’t here, and now it is. It’s everywhere”: Fentanyl’s rising presence in Oregon’s drug supply. Harm Reduction Journal, 19(1), Article 76. https://doi.org/10.1186/s129
  • Button, D., Cook, R., King, C., Tong, T. K., Kunkel, L., Bart, G., Thuy, D. T., Nguyen, D. B., Blazes, C. K., Giang, L. M., & Korthuis, P. T. (2022). Correlates of days of medication for opioid use disorder exposure among people living with HIV in Northern Vietnam. International Journal of Drug Policy, 100, 103503. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103503
  • Hill, T., Jiang, Y., Friese, C. R., Darbes, L. A., Blazes, C. K., & Zhang, X. (2020). Analysis of emergency department visits for all reasons by adults with depression in the United States. BMC Emergency Medicine, 20(1), 51. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12873-020-00347-6
  • GBD 2016 Neurology Collaborators. (2019). Global, regional, and national burden of neurological disorders, 1990-2016: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet Neurology, 18(5), 459-480. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(18)30499-X 
  • Woods, K., Graham, S., Dobscha, S., & Blazes, C. (2026). Reconsidering the usefulness of using long-acting injectable buprenorphine as a tapering tool: A case report of delayed withdrawal months after last dose. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1863924
  • Blazes CK, Leung S, Davis Chervin D and Silvernail B (2026) Toward clarifying ASAM’s inpatient and residential benzodiazepine tapering recommendations. Front. Psychiatry 25 May 2026 17:1857354. DOI:10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1857354 
  • Reconsidering the usefulness of long term high dose Buprenorphine. Jain L, Meeks TW and Blazes CK (2024) Front. Psychiatry 15:1401676. doi:0.3389/fpsyt.2024.1401676