• Deaths from drug overdoses reach record-high levels in 2014

    Deaths from drug overdoses reach record-high levels in 2014

    Dec 18, 2015 09:59 PM EST

    Nearly 50,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2014, a new record driven by the deaths of heroin addicts and people misusing prescription painkillers, according to new federal statistics. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 47,055 drug overdose deaths, more ...

  • No image

    U.S. heroin overdose deaths more than double in two years

    Oct 04, 2014 08:29 PM EST

    Deaths caused by heroin overdoses more than doubled between 2010 to 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. In a report released Friday, a study conducted in 28 states across the U.S. showed heroin overdoses increasing from 1,779 in 2010 to 3,635 in 2012. The ...

  • FDA approves at-home heroin overdose treatment

    FDA approves at-home heroin overdose treatment

    Apr 03, 2014 03:49 PM EST

    ... a device that automatically injects the right dose of the drug naloxone, a long-used antidote for opioid overdoses. Nalaxone has been a mainstay of overdose treatment for years, usually administered by syringe in ambulances or emergency rooms. But with the rise in drug overdose deaths, there has been a ...

  • No image

    VA's opiate overload feeds veterans' addictions, leading to overdose deaths

    Oct 03, 2013 09:30 PM EST

    ... weekend with a cocktail of 19 prescription medications, including 12 tablets of highly addictive oxycodone. Three hours later, Waggoner, 32, was dead of a drug overdose, slumped in a heap in front of his room at the Sleep Inn motel. "As a parent, you'd want to know how this ...

  • Judge formally approves opioid settlement for Purdue Pharma and Sackler family members who own the company

    Judge formally approves opioid settlement for Purdue Pharma and Sackler family members who own the company

    Nov 18, 2025 04:15 PM EST

    ... opioid crisis that has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999. WATCH: What’s behind the significant drop in opioid overdose deaths A portion of the money is to be distributed next year to some people who had OxyContin prescriptions and their survivors. "My heart ...

  • Judge says he'll approve opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma and Sackler family

    Judge says he'll approve opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma and Sackler family

    Nov 14, 2025 07:10 PM EST

    ... litigation.” Most of the money is to go to state and local governments to be used in their efforts to mitigate damage of the opioid epidemic. Overdose death numbers have been dropping in the past few years, a decline experts believe is partly due to the impact of settlement dollars.

  • Why regulators want to ban a key ingredient in kratom, a popular herbal supplement

    Why regulators want to ban a key ingredient in kratom, a popular herbal supplement

    Nov 09, 2025 10:35 PM EST

    ... opioids in the way that it interacts with our brains. And it may contribute to respiratory depression, which is ultimately what kills people when they overdose on opioids. So the Trump administration and some -- even some states like Florida have said, no more 7-OH, which is the street name ...

  • Trump has accused boat strike targets of being narco-terrorists. The truth is more nuanced, AP investigation finds

    Trump has accused boat strike targets of being narco-terrorists. The truth is more nuanced, AP investigation finds

    Nov 07, 2025 07:04 PM EST

    ... the U.S. is now in an “armed conflict” with them. Trump has said each sunken boat has saved 25,000 American lives, presumably from overdoses. The boats, however, appear to have been transporting cocaine, not the far more deadly synthetic opioids that kill tens of thousands of Americans each ...

  • U.S. strikes 8th and 9th alleged drug-carrying boats, this time in the Pacific, Hegseth says

    U.S. strikes 8th and 9th alleged drug-carrying boats, this time in the Pacific, Hegseth says

    Oct 22, 2025 07:49 PM EST

    ... strikes, Trump has repeatedly argued that illegal narcotics and the drug fentanyl carried by the vessels have been poisoning Americans. While the bulk of American overdose deaths are from fentanyl, the drug is transported by land from Mexico. Venezuela is a major drug transit zone, but the eastern Pacific Ocean ...

  • Fact-checking Trump's claim that each boat strike off Venezuela's coast saves 25,000 lives

    Fact-checking Trump's claim that each boat strike off Venezuela's coast saves 25,000 lives

    Oct 19, 2025 07:27 PM EST

    Generally, the politicians we have fact-checked referred to fentanyl seizures. The synthetic opioid is the leading cause of U.S. overdose deaths. Politicians’ statements about lives saved rely on the lethal dose for fentanyl — 2 milligrams. So if authorities seized 10 milligrams of fentanyl, for example, that saved five ...