Latest Drugs Headlines
All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.
West Virginia Hospital Association Releases Guidelines to Reduce Opioid Drug Abuse
Dec 18 2015 // The West Virginia Hospital Association Board of Trustees has endorsed a set of guidelines to help West Virginia’s hospitals reduce the misuse of opioid prescription drugs. Director of Communications Tina Rymer said...
Survey: Prescription Drug Abuse Affecting Indiana Companies
Dec 8 2015 // The majority of Indiana companies that responded to a survey tied to the state’s growing woes with prescription medication abuse say their businesses are being affected by workplace abuse or misuse of those drugs,...
Minnesota to Allow Chronic Pain Patients to Use Medical Marijuana
Dec 3 2015 // Minnesota health officials will allow residents with chronic pain to buy medical marijuana starting in August, they announced on Dec. 2 in a long-awaited decision that could expand enrollment in the state’s...
Smooth Sailing for Most California Workers’ Comp Cases, Drugs a Problem
Dec 2 2015 // More than eight-in-10 workers’ compensation cases in California were taken care of without a hitch, and an overwhelming majority of those cases sent to review were ultimately upheld, according to a new study...
Analysis: North Carolina Studying Drug Formularies in Workers’ Comp Claims
Nov 19 2015 // During the 2015 legislative session, the North Carolina General Assembly authorized and funded a study regarding prescription drug formularies in workers’ compensation claims brought by state employees. While this...
Battle Over Legalizing Marijuana Taking Shape in New Jersey
Nov 18 2015 // New Jersey’s Democratic-controlled Legislature took a step toward a showdown with Gov. Chris Christie over legalized marijuana on Monday. A state Senate panel convened a hearing on legalizing the drug, and a leading...
New Hampshire Lawmakers Expected to Create Drug-Focused Task Force
Nov 17 2015 // New Hampshire state lawmakers are expected to create a task force aimed at tackling New Hampshire’s substance abuse crisis when they return to Concord, New Hampshire, on Wednesday for a special session. If all goes...
Trucker in Fatal Oklahoma Crash Had History of Synthetic Drug Use
Nov 17 2015 // The truck that killed four members of a college women’s softball team in Oklahoma last year was driven by a Texas man with a history of using synthetic marijuana, U.S. safety investigators found. Russell Staley...
N.H. GOP Leaders Say Substance Abuse Proposals Need More Work
Nov 13 2015 // New Hampshire’s Republican lawmakers said they would rather create a legislative task force during a special session planned for next week to study some of Gov. Maggie Hassan’s proposals to combat the...
U.S. Health Care Cost Increases at Lowest Rate in Nearly 20 years: Aon
Nov 12 2015 // After plan design changes and vendor negotiations, the average health care rate increase for mid-size and large companies was 3.2 percent in 2015, marking the lowest rate increase since 1996, according to a new analysis by...
West Virginia Official Says Miner Drug Abuse Rising
Nov 3 2015 // The director of West Virginia’s mine safety office says there is a growing substance abuse problem among miners. Director Eugene White of the Office of Mine Health, Safety and Training told legislators last month...
Multi-County Mississippi Prescription Drug Fraud Sting Leads to 8 Arrests
Oct 22 2015 // An investigation by several Mississippi police agencies has led to multiple arrests in an alleged multi-county prescription drug forgery ring and the discovery of a suspected human trafficking victim. The Clarion-Ledger...
For Vermont Police, Checking for Pot-Impaired Drivers Is Work in Progress
Oct 21 2015 // It’s common knowledge that driving with blood alcohol content higher than .08 violates the law. But with marijuana, things are a lot more hazy. As Vermont and other states consider following the lead of Colorado and...
Prescription Drug Overdose Deaths Fall 5% in Oklahoma
Oct 20 2015 // The number of Oklahoma residents dying from unintentional prescription drug overdose dropped last year. The Oklahoman reports the state saw a 5 percent decrease in such deaths from the previous year. Preliminary data from...
Report: West Virginia Leads U.S. in Prescription Drug Overdoses
Oct 19 2015 // Nearly 2,900 West Virginians have overdosed on prescription painkillers or heroin over the past five years, according to the state Health Statistics Center. The center also said overdose deaths last year were the highest...
J&J Win in First Trial Against Tylenol Skirts Defective Design Claim
Oct 19 2015 // Johnson & Johnson defeated a lawsuit claiming it had improperly designed its Tylenol pain reliever in the first case to go to trial over the link between the widely used over-the-counter drug and liver damage,...
Drug Deaths Outnumbered Highway Fatalities in Virginia for 1st Time Last Year
Oct 16 2015 // Deaths from heroin and opioid use outnumbered highway fatalities in Virginia for the first time last year, officials said. Records show that 728 Virginians died from drug overdoses in 2014, while 700 people died on the...
Nonmedical Opioid Use Declines But Prescription Disorders, Deaths Rise: JAMA
Oct 13 2015 // New research suggests that while new medical guidelines and increased public awareness of problems with the use of opioids to treat chronic pain may be helping to slow the number of new opioid users, the prevalence of...
Drugs Prices Much Higher in U.S. Than in Other Countries: Research
Oct 12 2015 // U.S. prices for the world’s 20 top-selling medicines are, on average, three times higher than in Britain, according to an analysis carried out for Reuters. The finding underscores a transatlantic gulf between the...
Mississippi Doctor Pleads Guilty to Involvement in Prescription Pill Ring
Oct 8 2015 // A Waveland, Miss., doctor accused of running a prescription pill mill has pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance outside the scope of a medical practice. The Sun Herald reports...
