The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/drugs/)
Many insurers are limiting access to pain medications that carry a lower risk of addiction or dependence, even as they provide comparatively easy access to generic opioid medications. The reason is that opioid drugs are generally cheap while safer alternatives are often more expensive.
An ex-ray machine, a laser and a dog help Customs and Border Protection officers intercept shipments of fentanyl at NYC’s JFK International Airport.
President Trump promised to run the U.S. government like a business. If that were true, he would pay more attention to the soaring costs of opioids, says The New Yorker magazine.
Kian Loyd delos Santos, 17, was killed by police last month in what activists characterize as an execution. On Friday, the Philippine government disbanded the entire police force in the metropolitan Manila city where the slaying occurred.
China is the world’s largest supplier of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and ingredients, and the source of 79% of all counterfeit drugs seized in the U.S. But enforcement-based solutions are complicated by the lack of cooperation from Beijing, according to a forthcoming paper in the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review.
U.S. policymakers have begun to focus on the security threats from Trinidad and Tobago, just off South America’s north coast. According to a new study, the island nation of 1.2 million is emerging as a narcotics shipping hub; and on a per capita basis, it has sent more foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria than anywhere else in the region.
In Ohio in 2015, more than 12 people per 100,000 died of heroin overdoses. For Texas and California — both states on the border with Mexico, where much of the heroin supply is said to originate — that figure was less than two, a new analysis finds.
Now that the Trump administration is pledging to closely monitor states where the federally outlawed substance has been legalized, regulators in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington are trying to tame what has proved to be an unruly crop of home growers.
The president called the opioid problem a “national emergency” just last month. The prospects for funding to deal with it may be limited, in view of a clamor for funding to pay for damages by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
Preparing for Hurricane Irma, a needle exchange program in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood handed out extra syringes to heroin users. Other addicts picked up advance medication from methadone clinics. Disasters cause stress, and stress can cause relapse for people struggling with addiction.