Tag: drug abuse
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Pike court will keep lawsuit county and attorney general filed against Purdue Pharma over damage done by its OxyContin
A state court will hear the Kentucky attorney general’s 2007 lawsuit against OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, against the wishes of the company. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit...
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Legislature likely to tweak, clarify and limit last year’s ‘pill mill bill’
State lawmakers could narrow the focus of last year’s “pill mill bill” during the legislative session that begins tomorrow, to concentrate on adults with long-term prescriptions for frequently abused painkillers,...
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Painkiller epidemic was driven in part by drug makers’ financial relationships with researchers who discounted the risks
For almost a decade, medical officials and experts claimed OxyContin rarely posed problems of addiction for patients. The drug’s label, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration, said addiction...
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Generic OxyContin and Opana, headed for market soon, could make fight against pain-pill abuse tougher, McConnell says
With generic versions of the two most commonly-abused painkillers, Opana and OxyContin, coming on the market next year, police, hospitals and health clinics in Kentucky have voiced concern that “these...
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U.S. teens’ cigarette use drops to a new low, but use of alcohol goes up a bit and more 12th graders are smoking marijuana
Teenagers’ cigarette smoking dropped to a record low this year but alcohol use rose slightly after seven years of decline, according to a survey of 45,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-...
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Managed-care doctor creates process to steer pregnant Medicaid recipients who are using dangerous drugs into treatment
When Dr. Jeremy Corbett of Lexington found that “nearly one in five pregnant women enrolled in the Medicaid managed-care program where he works were using narcotics or other harmful drugs,” he...
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Oregon may show the way for Kentucky in drug treatment
In facing up to its need for more drug-treatment facilities, Kentucky could learn some lessons from Oregon, Courier-Journal reporter Laura Ungar writes in the third and last part of her...
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Cheaper heroin showing up in Eastern Kentucky as crackdown on pain pills makes that trade less attractive
About 60 grams of heroin, worth about$8,000. (AP photo) It was only few months ago that Northern Kentucky law enforcement officers and substance abuse clinics began expressing grave concern that...
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Covington police chief: New prescription-drug law has unintended consequence of encouraging pain pill addicts to use heroin, commit crimes
Black tar heroin Kentucky’s new prescription drug law may be having its desired effect of taking prescription painkillers off the streets, but could be forcing those very same addicts into...
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Pill-mill bill causing problems for patients who have long-term prescriptions: expensive drug-screening tests
In July, Kentucky started making long-time holders of certain controlled-substances prescriptions submit to urine tests to determine if they were actually taking the drugs, rather than selling them. Because insurance companies...