opioid addiction
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Red Table Talk: Jada Pinkett Smith and Guests Come Clean About Overcoming Addiction
“This was not an easy decision,” Adrienne Banfield-Norris tearfully says at the open of the latest episode of daughter Jada Pinkett Smith’s series, Red Table Talk. “It’s difficult to talk about something that is gonna go out to the world.” The 64-year-old Banfield-Norris is referring to her over 20-year addiction to heroin, which she managed…
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No Criminal Charges in Prince’s Overdose Death
Prince didn’t know he was taking fentanyl, a painkiller 30-50 times stronger than heroin, at the time of his death. Still, citing a lack of evidence, Carver County (Minn.) Attorney Mark Metz announced in a news conference on Thursday that there will be no criminal charges filed in relation to Prince’s overdose death. As CNN…
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Makers of OxyContin Say They Will No Longer Market to Doctors in Stunning Reversal
One would like to think that the reason the company that makes the powerful painkiller OxyContin says it will stop marketing the opioid to doctors is that the county is in the midst of a serious opioid epidemic—a big part of which involves prescription painkillers. More likely, though, it’s because many cities, states and municipalities…
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Trump’s Drug-Czar Pick Bows Out After Report on How He Helped to Fuel America’s Opioid Epidemic
In light of an investigative report from 60 Minutes and the Washington Post Sunday, President Donald Trump’s drug-czar pick has withdrawn his name from consideration to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Trump tweeted the news Tuesday morning. Your president, who seems to have a biological inability to admit an error, called Rep.…
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Former DEA Agents Say Trump’s Drug-Czar Pick Helped to Fuel the US Opioid Epidemic
Welcome to Bizarro World. In less than a year in office, “President” Donald Trump has chosen an anti-climate-change believer to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a racist to oversee the Justice Department, an education novice to run the Education Department and, to be his drug czar, a congressman who several Drug Enforcement Administration agents say…
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Opioid Crisis Intervention Court Is a New Kind of Drug-Court Program Looking to Stop People From Dying
Drug court is a common diversion program across the nation that attempts to help nonviolent drug addicts charged with crimes by placing them in a supervised treatment plan in lieu of the traditional justice system. In exchange for successfully completing the program, participants can often get a reduced sentence or have charges dismissed entirely. The…
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White Supremacy Is the Opioid That’s Destroying America
Last week, in a moment of both clumsy acknowledgment of reality and dispatching his charges of office like a dolt, “President” Donald Trump declared a state of emergency for the current opioid crisis in America. And in the typical Trumpian form of a man whose lips probably move when he reads menus, the president thought…
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What A Stint In Rehab Taught Me About White People's Feelings About Black People's Pain
Every time I read about or see a news story on the opioid epidemic, I greet it with a resounding “So what?” It’s an admittedly vindictive stance that I am in no way ashamed of. When I see that whole towns are languishing under the tyranny of the needle, I couldn’t bring myself to care…
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Ohio Town Considers Imposing a 3-Strike Policy on Heroin Overdoses
If you are a heroin addict in Middletown, Ohio, the city is considering a controversial proposal that could have an impact on whether or not you get help the next time you overdose on your drug of choice—and if it has its way, three strikes means you’re dead. WLWT reports that Middletown is considering whether…