Oxycodone

Bags of white powdery fentanyl on a table.

How the deadly drug fentanyl is making its way to the US

July 18, 2019Health

Fentanyl, a deadly drug 100 times stronger than morphine, is linked to complex international supply chains that traffic it into the US.

The family that helped start the opioid crisis

October 27, 2017Medicine

Tablets of Hydrocodone at a pharmacy in Portsmouth, Ohio

Smiley: Why is it we can only respond to a drug crisis when it is affecting the white and the wealthy?

July 7, 2017Justice

The number of daily opioid overdoses in South Florida is overwhelming police

April 20, 2017Lifestyle

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s tragic death is an ominous sign of heroin’s expanding reach

February 4, 2014Conflict & Justice

Canada’s First Nations communities wrecked by OxyContin addiction

August 15, 2013Health & Medicine

Fort Hope, Ontario, is one of a handful of communities in Canada where addiction to the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin runs rampant. An estimated 80 percent of working-age adults there abuse the prescription drug, and it’s stretching the resources of the community and leading the drastic increases in crime.

When a solution becomes a problem: doctors and lawmakers on opiate painkillers

August 14, 2013Conflict & Justice

Today an FDA advisory panel meets with lawmakers to hammer out voluntary best practices for doctors who prescribe opiates. But in loosening restrictions for such cases, the FDA opened a window for wider prescriptions — and for abuse.