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White House counselor Kellyanne Conway has been chosen to be President Trump's "opioid czar." Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Wednesday that the former pollster will supervise the White House's efforts to combat opioid addiction. "The president has made this a White House priority," Sessions said. "He's asked her to coordinate and lead the effort from the White House." Trump declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency in October. Federal data shows opioids such as heroin, fentanyl, and prescription painkillers kill 71 Americans a day. "She is exceedingly talented," Sessions continued about Conway. "She understands messaging." --snip-- The news of...

FAIRBORN, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio firefighter-paramedic driving an overdose patient to the hospital needed rescue himself. Fairborn Fire Department officials say the man wasn't seeing or feeling right, and his partner jumped to the front to stop the ambulance Thursday evening. The partner then administered the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and he drove the firefighter-paramedic and the woman they had been transporting to a hospital in Beavercreek southwest Ohio.

Fentanyl is the synthetic opioid driving America’s public health crisis. Its cheap price, widespread use, addictive quality and deadly effect make it more dangerous than other narcotics classified by the DEA. It is, ultimately, a chemical. And it’s being used as a weapon in China’s 21st Century Opium War against America.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - The bishop of West Virginia's Episcopal Church is encouraging congregations to carry the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone. The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the Rev. W. Michie Klusmeyer made the request at the West Virginia Episcopal diocese's annual convention in Charleston last weekend. Klusmeyer says naloxone should be available not only to members of the surrounding neighborhood who might overdose, but to church members who might have substance abuse problems.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Melania, for your moving words and for your devotion -- it's a very deep devotion, I can tell you that -- to our nation and its children. Thank you also to members of Congress, my Cabinet, governors, members of Congress, state, local leaders, first responders, and healthcare professionals gathered here today. We have some truly incredible people in this room -- that I can tell you. Most importantly, we acknowledge the families present who have lost a cherished loved one. As you all know from personal experience, families, communities, and citizens across our country are currently...

Amid a targeted lobbying effort, Congress weakened the DEA’s ability to go after drug distributors, even as opioid-related deaths continue to rise, a Washington Post and ‘60 Minutes’ investigation finds. In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets. By then, the opioid war had claimed 200,000 lives, more than three times the number of U.S. military deaths in the Vietnam War. Overdose deaths continue to rise. There is no...

In a recent op-ed, I discussed the fundamental role despair has played in the opioid crisis. Further that the horrifying and climbing number of opioid deaths is part of a larger phenomenon of deaths of despair – drug overdose, alcoholism, suicide – that began at the millennium, reversing a decades-long trend of increasing longevity. Finally, that these deaths of despair have disproportionately stricken young to middle-aged, unemployed, non-college graduate whites. One might argue that these statistics suggest that this despair primarily is a result of material want. Yet that proposition ignores the fact that, in the annals of human history,...

Trinity County is the state’s fourth-smallest, and ended last year with an estimated population of 13,628 people. Its residents also filled prescriptions for oxycodone, hydrocodone and other opioids 18,439 times, the highest per capita rate in California. Places like West Virginia, Ohio and rural New England have become synonymous with prescription painkiller abuse, a scourge blamed for more than 183,000 deaths from 1999 through 2015.

... legal or not, using opioids is just plain stupid. Compared to an opioid user, a man who punches himself in the face looks smart. That's why I roll my eyes and change the channel when hectored about this so-called epidemic. If you want to talk about an epidemic, talk about zika or bird flu. Opioid addiction comes from a decision, not a virus. No mosquito can infect you with opioid addiction, and you don't need antibacterial soap to avoid catching it. To speak of it as an epidemic and to speak of addicts as victims is to stack the...

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — A controversial proposal has been made in an Ohio city to deal with heroin overdoses. Middletown is considering whether people with addiction should only be given two strikes before they’re out of chances at Narcan. Middletown is struggling to deal with the heroin problem. “We are faced with stress on our services, particularly the EMS services where we can do six to eight opioid overdose runs a day,” said Paul Lolli, fire chief of Middletown.

This DRUG is being used OFF LABEL and KILLS, fueling the FAKE Opioid Crisis. PIG PHARMA pushed. It's called Subsys and it's a painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine that was approved by the FDA for cancer patients whose agony can't be relieved by other narcotics alone.

Opioid addiction is a medical epidemic, a law-enforcement crisis and now officially an emergency in two states whose governors are taking steps to increase funding to fight it. Last week, Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency, allotting $27 million in funds for prevention and treatment services for opioid addiction. Florida followed Maryland, which was the first state to declare a state of emergency related to the opioid crisis in March, when it unlocked $50 million in new funding over a five-year period allocated for the epidemic.

Quote the article: "Prosecutors in Belgium have recently announced that executives with pharmaceutical companies based in the country will be charged with knowingly providing drug cartels with prescription drugs that were used to manufacture methamphetamine. . . . accused of providing the Mexican drug kingpin Ezio Figueroa Vazquez with several tons of ephedrine . . . seven executives who were charged with crimes . . . company made two shipments of two million pills containing pseudoephedrine in 2006 . . . big pharma drug Adderall is nearly identical to crystal meth . . .the only place to get massive quantities...

By about 3 p.m. Friday, a county morgue in east Ohio was already full — and more bodies were expected. Rick Walters, an investigator for the Stark County coroner's office, had just left for two death scenes: a suicide and an overdose. From the road, he called the director of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency to ask for help. He needed more space, he explained — specifically, a cold-storage trailer to act as an overflow morgue. As with much of the United States, Ohio is in the throes of a heroin and opioid epidemic that shows no signs of abating.

Caption -- New research suggests people with chronic pain would rather use cannabis over their recommended medicine. Chronic pain sufferers and those taking mental health meds would rather turn to cannabis instead of their prescribed opioid medication, according to a new study. "This study is one of the first to track medical cannabis use under the new system of licensed producers, meaning that all participants had physician authorization to access cannabis in addition to their prescription medicines," says UBC Assoc. Prof. Zach Walsh, co-author of the study. The study tracked more than 250 patients with prescribed medical cannabis--people treated for...

The head of a pharmaceutical company, who partnered with the Clinton Foundation, has increased the price of an auto-injector used to treat opioid overdoses by 680 percent over the course of three years.Spencer Williamson, the president and chief executive officer of the Richmond, Virginia-based Kaleo Pharmaceuticals, is under fire after the price of a two-pack of Evzio, a device that treats life-threatening opioid overdoses, skyrocketed from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 today.Thirty-one Democratic senators are now demanding answers on the price hike."We are deeply concerned about reports that Kaleo dramatically increased the cost of its naloxone injector device, Evzio, an...

Last week, my two stepsons' father, a man who loved life, killed himself. I would like to tell you why. Two years ago, a 62-year-old father of three named Bruce Graham was standing on an ladder, inspecting his roof for a leak, when it slipped out from under him. He landed on top of the ladder on his back, breaking several ribs, puncturing a lung and tearing his intestine, which wasn't detected until he went into septic shock. Following surgery, he lapsed into a two-week coma. In retrospect, it's unfortunate that he awoke from that coma because for all intents...

Massachusetts General Hospital has been ramping up efforts on the opioid crisis for months, but now they're tackling drug abuse inside its own walls. Hospital staff said users are shooting up in bathrooms, walkways and parking garages there to more quickly get medical help if they overdose. One tactic even includes tying bathroom emergency pull cords to themselves, so an alarm will sound if they collapse.

Should the inquiry determine that the companies made false claims, the city would then seek to recover millions of dollars in health care dollars spent on pain drugs used to treat city employees and retirees, the court filing shows. The investigation, which began this summer, appears to be in an early phase. The city hired an outside class-action law firm, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, to handle the case. It would receive a share in any money recovered through a successful lawsuit, the filing shows. “As part of its ongoing efforts to protect Chicago taxpayers, the city conducts reviews concerning...

Prescribers and the public have been misinformed about the risk of addiction when chronic pain is treated with opioids. This has led to overprescribing of opioids and the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history. Even when taken as directed, patients receiving long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain can become addicted.Physicians who find their patients addicted, i.e., experiencing higher and higher tolerance requiring higher and higher dosing, should consider a referral to a SAMHSA evidence-based best practice Medication Assisted Treatment program at a SAMHSA CSAT certified Opioid Treatment Program. In Oklahoma call 877-341-3017