Doctors must lead us out of our opioid abuse epidemic
(CNN)Veteran doctors don't need a blood test to tell when someone is on the verge of a drug overdose. They can even narrow down the culprit by observation alone. Dilated pupils mean cocaine,...
View ArticleHow Ohio prosecutors are fighting back against deadly heroin
(CNN)The short, scarce breaths had all but stopped by the time the paramedics arrived. On August 21, EMS workers in Springfield, Ohio, found a heroin user passed out behind the wheel of a car. Having...
View ArticleHow Misuse of a Single Paragraph Ended Up Killing 60,000 Americans Per Year
Opioid addiction is at an all-time high in the U.S., and according to many addiction specialists, pain and hopelessness are primary drivers of this burgeoning crisis.1 Limiting the availability of...
View ArticleCongress’s Take on the Heroin Epidemic
A heroin epidemic is on fire all across America. Heroin deaths shot up from 1,779 in 2001 to 10,574 in 2014 as Afghan opium poppy fields metastasized from 7,600 hectares in 2001 (when the War in...
View ArticleWhat's behind growing push to punish dealers in fatal ODs?
Faced with an alarming increase in opioid addiction, a growing number of prosecutors are charging dealers not just for selling but for the deaths of customers who overdose on heroin or fentanyl. Here...
View ArticlePrescriptions for painkillers brought about the explosion in heroin use in...
Andi Peterson, seen in a mugshot (left) and several years after treatment (right). Andi Peterson never thought twice about taking Percocet. After all, the powerful painkiller had been prescribed by a...
View ArticleDark Shadows: Iran-Contra, Secret Wars & Covert Operations, Part 3
INTRODUCTION: This is the third of a five-part series exploring the Iran-Contra Affair and its consequences. Part 1 described the Reagan Administration’s secret wars and illegal arms deals exposed in...
View ArticleCounterfeit opioid pills are tricking users - sometimes with lethal results
More than two dozen patients were rushed into an emergency room in Macon, Georgia, over two days with the same array of life-threatening symptoms, including organ failure and sepsis, flummoxing...
View ArticleCounterfeit opioid pills are tricking users, with lethal results
Several counterfeit Percocet pills were seized by authorities in Georgia. (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) More than two dozen patients were rushed into an emergency room in Macon, Georgia, over two...
View ArticleDrug-addicted, dangerous and licensed for the operating room
Dr. Joely Nelson slumped from a living room chair onto a pillow on the hearth of the fireplace, her face scorched from the heat, her dead body riddled with drugs. A fellow anesthesiologist found her...
View Articletreatment for crack addicts than today's heroin users
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — When Leola Bivins was first sent away for dealing drugs, she was a 22-year-old high school dropout with a 2-year-old daughter at home. Addiction was the center of the life she...
View ArticleDrugmakers fought state opioid limits amid crisis
The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the...
View ArticleREAD: Full text of Christie's 2017 State of the State
Full text of the governor's 2017 State of the State address. TRENTON -- Gov. Chris Christie gave his seventh State of the State address on Tuesday. Here's the full prepared text of the governor's...
View ArticleLive fact check: Chris Christie's 2017 State of the State address
Follow along as we annotate the speech with fact checks, previous coverage and additional context Gov. Chris Christie is scheduled to give his 2016 State of the State speech in Trenton Tuesday. We'll...
View Article'It was a conspiracy': recovering addicts wage legal battle over prescription...
Groundbreaking lawsuit unfolds in West Virginia as ‘pill-pushing’ doctors and pharmacists are being accused of colluding with medical industry to get rich...
View ArticleMan jailed for life for killing homeowner with his car
Date Outline 04/10/2017 A 24-year-old homeless man has today been sentenced to life imprisonment at Birmingham Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to the murder of a mother and son at their family home...
View ArticleOpioid crisis gets personal for judge who helped troubled youth
The Honorable Maurice H. Hilliard Jr., 84, awoke at sunrise that first Saturday morning in April, 2016. Morning dew clung to the first budding blooms of spring as he walked outside his Roswell home. He...
View ArticleSummit County gets tough on heroin deaths, charging drug suppliers with...
When Charles Marotto was recently sentenced to five years in prison for providing a fatal hit of heroin to a man he considered a friend, few people left the courtroom happy. Not Marotto. Not the...
View ArticleThe Last Shot
by Alec MacGillis ProPublica Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment Donate The Last Shot Amid a surging opiate crisis, the maker of the anti-addiction drug Vivitrol skirted the usual sales...
View ArticleKRISTINE
It’s autumn of 2010 and I’m standing in the exact spot where ten-year-old Kristine Mihelich was found dead as fucking winter in 1977, her newly plum-colored face a muted beacon in the freshly fallen...
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