Tarantula venom being used to develop new pain medication as alternative to opioids and last updated 2021-07-15 00:00:08-04 Researchers at the University of California, Davis are using tarantula venom to develop a new type of pain medication that they hope will provide an alternative to addictive opioids. The project is part of the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL) Initiative, which is aimed at ending opioid addiction and creating non-addictive therapies to treat pain. Opioid addiction has surged in the U.S. in recent years. In 2019, nearly 50,000 people in the country died from opioid-involved overdoses, according to the university.