• Australian court upholds sex abuse verdict of Cardinal Pell

    Australian court upholds sex abuse verdict of Cardinal Pell

    Aug 21, 2019 12:40 PM EDT

    ... court's findings. One of the choirboys, identified by the sentencing judge as J.J., was the key prosecution witness. His friend, identified as M.R., died of a heroin overdose in 2014 at the age of 31 without ever complaining he had been abused. Neither victim can be named.

  • How Groucho Marx fell prey to elder abuse

    How Groucho Marx fell prey to elder abuse

    Aug 19, 2019 01:00 PM EDT

    ... Arthur further alleged that Fleming pushed Groucho to perform, whether he was able or not, for her own financial gain. Groucho’s nurses claimed Erin overdosed the comedian on tranquilizers and called him nasty names like “pig” and “crazy old man.” Accoridng to court testimony, There were other occasions when ...

  • Trump administration tightens opioid prescriptions for federal employees

    Trump administration tightens opioid prescriptions for federal employees

    Jul 29, 2019 08:10 PM EDT

    ... following the lead of several states that have already restricted opioid prescriptions for their employees. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced that overdose deaths appear to have declined last year for the first time in nearly three decades. Data show nearly 68,000 reported deaths in 2018 ...

  • Will Medicare cover my addiction treatment?

    Will Medicare cover my addiction treatment?

    Jul 25, 2019 10:49 PM EDT

    ... to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As alarming as that number may appear, a dozen other states had even higher prescription rates. Further, overdose death rates from these powerful drugs have increased 500 percent during the past 20 years, a trend that appears to have worsened as use ...

  • Government hospitals put Native Americans at opioid risk, audit says

    Government hospitals put Native Americans at opioid risk, audit says

    Jul 22, 2019 03:04 PM EDT

    ... opioids and benzodiazepines — commonly used to treat anxiety and insomnia —at the same time, which "puts patients at a greater risk of a potentially fatal overdose." The Indian Health Service said it implemented a tool to track the dosages, and all of its facilities reported data in the first quarter ...

  • How racial inequity is playing out in the opioid crisis

    How racial inequity is playing out in the opioid crisis

    Jul 18, 2019 09:24 PM EDT

    Despite the lower number of fatal overdoses compared to whites, opioids and drug abuse in general is still a rampant problem in many communities of color. “When you look at 2017, the opioid overdose death rate for white non-Hispanics was 19.4 percent. We've seen a doubling of ...

  • Does marijuana hurt or help your brain? Scientists rush to study the drug's impact

    Does marijuana hurt or help your brain? Scientists rush to study the drug's impact

    Jul 10, 2019 10:40 PM EDT

    ... struggle, but he finally weaned himself off of opioids, and now relies mostly on medical marijuana, which, unlike those prescription painkillers, has never caused an overdose death.But government studies show 9 percent of those who use marijuana will become dependent on the drug, much better than alcohol, at about ...

  • Florida approves statewide needle exchange

    Florida approves statewide needle exchange

    Jun 27, 2019 02:45 PM EDT

    MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill that authorizes Florida counties to establish programs that allow intravenous drug users to exchange used needles for clean ones. The measure is modeled after a Miami-based program which also provides HIV screening, access to social services, the opioid-overdose antidote Narcan ...

  • AP fact check: Trump and the credit and blame game

    AP fact check: Trump and the credit and blame game

    Jun 08, 2019 03:52 PM EDT

    ... through their country from Central, from Honduras and Guatemala, El Salvador.” — Fox News interview Thursday. THE FACTS: Trump is inflating the death toll from drug overdoses — more than 70,200 in 2017 — and wrongly blaming all the known deaths on Mexico. Tens of thousands of those deaths have nothing to ...

  • Prosecutors say Australian cardinal's convictions should stand

    Prosecutors say Australian cardinal's convictions should stand

    Jun 06, 2019 03:03 PM EDT

    One of the people Pell is convicted of molesting died of a heroin overdose in 2014 aged 31, apparently without ever alleging he had been abused. State law prohibits identifying either victim. The other, now in his 30s, became the key prosecution witness. He first came to police in 2015 ...