• What's driving the dramatic rise in alcohol-related deaths during the pandemic?

    What's driving the dramatic rise in alcohol-related deaths during the pandemic?

    Mar 23, 2022 10:25 PM EST

    ... overdose can't be understated. Certainly, what we're seeing in terms of this acceleration of alcohol-related deaths intersects very directly with the opioid overdose epidemic.William Brangham: You touched on this before, but certainly anyone that has ever tried to get anyone into psychiatric care or substance abuse ...

  • WATCH: Sen. Cotton asks Jackson questions about policing during the confirmation hearing

    WATCH: Sen. Cotton asks Jackson questions about policing during the confirmation hearing

    Mar 23, 2022 01:28 AM EST

    ... At one point, Cotton said to the nominee, "I think that not many Americans, especially not the 100,000 Americans who lost someone to drug overdose think these are tough questions." Jackson shot back: "It's not that they're difficult questions. It's that they're not questions for ...

  • Americans describe the momentous mental health toll of the pandemic

    Americans describe the momentous mental health toll of the pandemic

    Mar 15, 2022 10:25 PM EST

    ... my book. The book, I was trying to figure out, why, with so much progress in science, have we seen increases in suicide, increases in overdose deaths, increases in morbidity and mortality for people with mental illness? And the answer is not in the science. It's not even in ...

  • After years of pain, opioid crisis victims confront Sackler family in court

    After years of pain, opioid crisis victims confront Sackler family in court

    Mar 10, 2022 05:40 PM EST

    ... they be used for some pain conditions for which the potent drugs were previously considered off limits. Over the decades, there were waves of fatal overdoses, first associated with prescription drugs and then, as prescriptions became harder to obtain and some drugs became harder to manipulate for a quick high ...

  • A look inside the 1st official safe injection sites in U.S.

    A look inside the 1st official safe injection sites in U.S.

    Mar 10, 2022 12:46 AM EST

    ... whatever type — to the consumption rooms, but they're stocked with syringes, alcohol wipes, straws for snorting, other paraphernalia and, crucially, oxygen and the opioid-overdose-reversing drug naloxone. Staffers, some of whom have used illegal drugs themselves, watch for signals of overconsumption or other needs, from advice on injection ...

  • A Brief But Spectacular take on change and healing

    A Brief But Spectacular take on change and healing

    Mar 03, 2022 11:25 PM EST

    ... went to prison at 18 years old. That was just the way it was, just the way it is. My father died from a heroin overdose a week before we were born. My mom was a heroin addict well until my adulthood, witnessing overdoses in my house, and murder outside ...

  • Purdue Pharma, U.S. states agree to new settlement for opioid crisis

    Purdue Pharma, U.S. states agree to new settlement for opioid crisis

    Mar 03, 2022 09:09 PM EST

    ... decades. "We're pleased with the settlement achieved in mediation, under which all of the additional settlement funds will be used for opioid abatement programs, overdose rescue medicines, and victims," Purdue Pharma said in a statement issued separately from the family's. "With this mediation result, we continue on track ...

  • LISTEN: Supreme Court justices seem to favor doctors in case over pain pill prescription convictions

    LISTEN: Supreme Court justices seem to favor doctors in case over pain pill prescription convictions

    Mar 01, 2022 02:57 PM EST

    ... opioid pain reliever, and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Jessica Burch, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, was a patient of Kahn’s who died from an overdose in 2015. He wrote nearly 15,000 prescriptions for controlled substances between 2011 and the end of 2016, totaling nearly 2.2 million pills ...

  • Johnson & Johnson, distributors finalize $26B opioid settlement

    Johnson & Johnson, distributors finalize $26B opioid settlement

    Feb 25, 2022 02:27 PM EST

    ... expected $86 million share this year for youth opioid education and to train treatment providers, improve data collection and distribute naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses. In Florida's Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale, the number of beds in a county-run detoxification facility could be expanded from 50 ...

  • Senate confirms Biden's FDA pick after narrow vote

    Senate confirms Biden's FDA pick after narrow vote

    Feb 15, 2022 07:00 PM EST

    "Nothing that Dr. Califf has said or done has led me to believe he will operate the FDA any differently than he did during his previous tenure," said Manchin, whose home state has been ravaged for decades by opioid addiction and overdoses. The White House long assumed enough Republicans ...