Opioids

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday approved a non-opioid pain medication that can prevent people from becoming addicted and at risk of overdosing.

Rite Aid customers in Michigan and Ohio have been left scrambling to find new pharmacies after the drugstore hastily closed every location.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is facing criticism for allowing advertisements that promote illegal drugs including cocaine and opioids on its social media platforms, even as it faces a federal investigation into the practice. 

A couple was arrested in Pinellas County, Florida, after a baby in their care died from an oxycodone overdose.

A drug task force seized approximately 25,000 fentanyl pills being kept in a backpack under a baby’s crib at a home in San Jose, California.

A grandmother is accused of exposing her granddaughter to fentanyl after passing out in her parked car from her own alleged fentanyl use.

A mother and father were arrested in Smith County, Texas, on Monday morning for allegedly hiding fentanyl pills inside their baby’s diaper.

Two alleged drug dealers in San Jose, California have been charged with murder for their role in the fentanyl death of a toddler in 2023.

The bill is aimed at combating fentanyl overdoses among children after the deaths of three Bay Area infants and toddlers. 

The United Nations revealed that, according to its estimates, Myanmar is now the world’s top producer of opium, dethroning Afghanistan.

This early substance report tracks with Perry’s claim that after decades of substance abuse, he had become sober again.

The Chinese government propaganda outlet Global Times mocked the ongoing mystery of the discovery of cocaine in the West Wing of the White House in a column Thursday, calling America generally “drug-infested” and condemning reports that law enforcement may not be able to identify the cocaine’s owner as “ridiculous.”

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned in its annual World Drug Report released this week that as much as 86 percent of the world’s population has “too little access” to pharmaceutical opioids – despite identifying opioids as “the leading cause of deaths in fatal overdoses.”

What has been dubbed the “trial of the century” in South Carolina, the trial of Alex Murdaugh has gripped the nation as he faces potential life in prison for the alleged double murder of his wife and son.

Americans see opioids and fentanyl as the number one health threat in the country, according to an Axios-Ipsos Health Index survey published Thursday.

“We are doing that which needs to be done” to counter cartel-delivered fentanyl and other drugs that killed more than 100,000 Americans in 2021, President Joe Biden’s homeland security chief told the Washington Post.

A Vancouver man named Jerry Martin is floating a business plan to open a store that would sell crack, meth, and heroin over the counter as soon as British Columbia decriminalizes hard drugs — a policy announced in May and scheduled to take effect on January 31, 2023.

U.S. life expectancy declined to a 25-year low in 2021 as nearly 107,000 Americans died from drug overdose deaths last year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data published Thursday.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed in a report on Tuesday that prices in Afghanistan for opium products “soared” in the past year and 32 percent more territory nationwide has been dedicated to cultivating the narcotic – statistics that reveal a booming industry under Taliban rule.

Approximately $172,500 worth of fentanyl tablets were seized by authorities at a mailing facility on Thursday in Gainesville, Georgia.

The DEA announced Tuesday that a task force team busted a New Jersey woman trafficking approximately 15,000 rainbow fentanyl pills stuffed in Lego boxes in Manhattan. The drug agency noted that this “significant seizure” of the colored pills was the largest in New York City’s history.

A Narcan vending machine, which dispenses life-saving naloxone to treat opioid overdoses, was emptied approximately one day after being installed in Vine Grove, Kentucky.

Officials are raising the alarm that children are being targeted by drug cartels ahead of the Halloween season after authorities discovered 15,000 fentanyl pills hidden in candy packaging in Connecticut.

Senator Roger Marshall (R—KS) called on CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to take action on the fentanyl crisis, saying that she is currently “turning her back” on the epidemic.

A New Jersey cardiologist was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Wednesday for unlawfully issuing thousands of oxycodone pills to a couple.

U.S. Senators who are also doctors released a PSA about the fentanyl crisis on Friday, calling it the “deadliest drug our nation has ever seen.” 

The deadly synthetic opioid known as fentanyl is hitting New Zealand hard, and drug abuse experts say the authoritarian government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was completely unprepared for its arrival.

A report from the U.S. Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking concludes that overdose deaths cost the U.S. $1 trillion annually.

“The Biden administration should be charged with murder,” Rep. Greg Murphy said in relation to drug overdose deaths and open-border politics.

A pharmacist in Pennsylvania turned himself over to authorities Monday after they alleged he traded drugs for sexual favors in a breach of his ethical responsibilities, Fox News reported Thursday.

New York’s Attorney General Letitia James said Saturday Johnson & Johnson agreed to stop selling opioids nationwide in a $230 million settlement with the state.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials seized 934 pounds of fentanyl at the southern border in May, a 300 percent increase over last May, according to CBP data.

Despite the polarized times we live in, this much has become increasingly hard to deny: there are the official Biden administration talking points, and then there is reality. 

A police investigation into hundreds of lives allegedly shortened by the wrongful administration of opioids at an NHS hospital has been expanded to include the review of 15,000 death certificates.

Biden nominee for associate attorney general, Vanita Gupta, owns between $11 million and $55 million of stock in her father’s company that sold acetic anhydride to Mexican cartels, which is used to make “high-grade ‘china white’ heroin and methamphetamine,” according to reports.

Columbia University professor Carl Hart says that he uses heroin regularly as part of his “work-life balance.” The professor added that he first tried heroin six or seven years ago, and that at the time, he was already a tenured professor who was “well over” 40 years old.