Maryland, a state that already had one of the country’s most punishing overdose mortality rates, notched a record-high number of drug deaths last year. The grim milestone was fueled by an alarming increase of fentanyl-related fatalities. Despite renewed efforts to …
The place might sound familiar, even if you’ve never been there: the Appalachian foothills, down by the Ohio River, where the sirens scream addiction and death. Twenty-six overdoses in one afternoon. The highest death rate in the state. One in …
Massachusetts on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma LP, accusing the OxyContin maker of illegally promoting the use of opioids, and became the first state to sue the drugmaker’s executives and directors to hold them responsible as well. The …
A federal judge has ruled that Delaware’s lawsuit against drug manufacturers, distributors and drugstores over the opioid crisis should be sent back to state court. In a ruling last week, the judge granted the state’s request to remand the case …
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has vetoed Senate Bill 936, which sought to amend the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act by establishing a formulary, or a list of prescription medications that could be prescribed to injured workers. “The formulary proposed in this …
The U.S. government on Tuesday proposed tightening rules governing the amount of prescription opioid painkillers that drugmakers can manufacture in a given year, in hopes of reining in the deadly opioid epidemic. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s proposed changes to its …
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has approved legislation that will protect injured workers from being over-prescribed addictive opioids and help control escalating medical costs in the workers’ compensation system, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI). SB 1111 …
Arkansas’ attorney general has joined the widening mass of litigation against opioid manufacturers, accusing three drugmakers of promoting addictive painkillers in ways that falsely denied or trivialized their risks. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge filed a lawsuit in state court …
The American Dental Association, based in Chicago, wants dentists to drastically cut back on prescribing opioid painkillers. The association announced a new policy that “essentially says eliminate opioids from your arsenal if at all possible,” said Dr. Joseph Crowley, the …
A coalition of cities and counties around Arkansas announced it had sued dozens of makers and distributors of opioids, arguing that the companies should bear the cost of drug abuse in the state. The Association of Arkansas Counties and the …
