opioid epidemic

As the covid crisis fuels a surge in overdoses, scientists race to halt addiction at its source: the brain.

"Long-term exposure to air pollution increases vulnerability to experiencing the most severe COVID-19 outcomes," a team of Harvard scientists wrote.

"We are seeing a worrying increase in harmful exposures to gabapentin and baclofen in U.S. adults over recent years," an expert told Newsweek.

Purdue Pharma and hundreds of tribes have yet to distribute $200 million in emergency funding to mitigate local opioid crises, but quickly organized around paying states' attorneys.

"We know that many individuals are going to be detoxing while they're in our custody, and we know that people are highly susceptible to overdose upon release," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told the Houston Chronicle.

Teva Pharmaceuticals will pay less than 0.014 percent of its annual revenue as of 2018 over a 10 year period and will produce free drugs at just a slice of their operating cost.

"Of course states need to be compensated. But the concern is that very little money actually filters down to those who have been most deeply affected," Kate Nicholson, civil rights attorney and patient advocate, told Newsweek in an interview.

More than four out of five doctors are reluctant to take on patients using prescribed opioids, according to a survey of 500 physicians conducted by Quest Diagnostics and the Center on Addiction.

Civil rights attorney and pain patient advocate Kate Nicholson said she was "thrilled" to see Democratic primary candidates talk about the opioid epidemic Tuesday night. "It matters because we do have a crisis," she said.

"We're focusing really heavily on restricting access to prescription opioids, but that's because it's what we're comfortable doing," Travis Rieder said. "There's not actually any evidence that these cuts save lives."

After hundreds of chronic pain patients begged the Drug Enforcement Administration to reconsider its proposed cuts to opioid production, the agency told Newsweek it's not responsible for their inability to get prescriptions.

The DEA proposed reducing the manufacturing of prescription opioids for the fourth year in a row, but chronic pain patients are begging the agency to reconsider.

The story of a Sesame Street character's struggle with her mother's substance abuse is not age-appropriate, the Fox News contributor said.

Researchers say cannabis appears to treat both pain and insomnia—but urge caution about use of the drug.

So far there have been 92 fatal overdoses in the county this year.

Opiate overdoses claim more than 115 lives a day in the U.S.

Buying opioids on the internet isn't just illegal: it's usually a scam.

"It won't be the Mexican government [paying for the wall]; it will be the Mexican cartels, and that's probably the better party to bill there."

Canada's Public Health Agency estimated that around 4,000 people died from opioids last year.

Chelsea Clinton thanked the president.

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

"This fast-moving epidemic does not stay within state and county lines."

The president's proposed budget indicates that the White House will focus on addressing opioids as it plans to devote nearly $13 billion toward the epidemic.

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

"It's not a ghetto drug," Senator Martin Golden said of the opioid epidemic. "It's happening to doctor's kids."

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

"Fentanyl is not a choice. It's a contamination crisis."

"This is not just an opioid use crisis of historic proportions...There is a more general drug misuse crisis."

South Carolina officials can't find any pharmaceutical companies to make the lethal drugs needed to execute one of its prisoners because they are scared of backlash. 

An opioid at the heart of America's drug epidemic will be used for death row executions in Nevada and Nebraska if the never-before-tried combination of drugs is approved.