opioid crisis

Between 2010 and 2016, there has been a 493 percent spike in people being diagnosed with opioid addiction, in what the National Institute of Drug Abuse describes as a national crisis.

President Donald Trump pledged to hold big pharma responsible for its role in fueling America's opioid crisis, which is killing 130 people a day.

We should follow the example of Dayton, Ohio, and help, not handcuff addicts—even as we vigorously prosecute dealers and dodgy doctors.

Opioid deaths have risen to 1 in 96, a figure now higher than the 1 in 103 probability of dying in a car crash.

According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates, West Virginia lost about 0.5 percent of its population between July 2017 and July 2018. The United States, meanwhile, gained about the same percentage of people overall.

It is 50 times more potent than pure heroin and 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Prison staff are thought to have been exposed to synthetic drugs.

More than 115 Americans die every day after overdosing on opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.

The authors suggested that socioeconomic factors such as poverty were contributing factors.

This is a crisis—but we won't find the remedy in more punitive measures that take us back to the war on drugs.

The contracts are hoped to curb the U.S.'s opioid crisis.

"Make no mistake, misuse of fentanyl will kill you!" warned a DEA special agent.

If there is no victim, there is no crime—and that's why the War on Drugs is a war on addicts.

"Catching the dealers and the pushers, I'd like to take them out back and waterboard them," Jack Newbrough said.

Our government is now dictating what constitutes acceptable prescribing of controlled substances, and patients who need potent pain medications are suffering.

The first lady's platform for children will tackle nutrition, drug and opioid abuse, her spokeswoman said.

Fatal overdoses have increased in Arkansas by roughly 300 percent over the last 18 years, in that same period, opioid sales quadrupled. The state has the second highest opioid prescribing rate in the country, behind Alabama. More prescriptions are filed in Arkansas each year than there are people.

Kellyanne Conway is in charge of the White House's efforts to tackle the opioid epidemic.

The misuse of opioids has reached crisis levels across North America. Every day in 2016, 116 Americans died from opioid-related drug overdoses.

"I remember when [Trump] was running for president, he talked about how beautiful New Hampshire was and how the drug problem here didn't make sense, and I agreed," said Rachel Behrens, who lives in the Manchester area and lost her 19-year-old son to a Fentanyl overdose last year. "At that time my son was alive, and now he isn't. It's way too late."

"We put Melania and other people on this blue ribbon committee," the president said about efforts around the opioid epidemic.

Miami-Dade County became the latest in a slew of counties and cities seeking litigation against the pharmaceutical industry for its alleged role in the opioid crisis.

The president is considering how to tackle the problem.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has sent letters to three top drug distributors requesting more information.

The budget President Donald Trump is set to release on Monday is expected to slash the drug office's funding.

Drug wholesalers also shipped millions of pills to another town with 400 people.

"It's time for Big Pharma to pay for what they've done. It's time that they are held accountable," the mayor said.

"It means nothing if it has no funding to push it forward," Kennedy said.

This comes as overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans under 50.

"There is no reason why addressing this crisis should come at the expense of our Second Amendment rights," Pennsylvania State Senator Scott Wagner said.