drug overdose

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Narcan Could Soon Be Available Over the Counter

FDA panels support change making overdose-reversing drug much more widely available

(Newser) - Two panels of Food and Drug Administration advisers have unanimously recommended that Narcan be made available over the counter, a move that could help reduce deaths in the ongoing opioid epidemic. The overdose-reducing nasal spray, known generically as naloxone, is already widely used by first responders and outreach workers. But...

Police: Fentanyl Killing Teens May Have Come From One Home

Authorities say adults in home distributed pills to teens who sold them to other teens

(Newser) - Police say 10 students ages 13 to 17 have overdosed on fentanyl, three of them fatally, since September in the Carrollton area near Dallas, Texas—and the pills in question may all have come from one house. The students involved attend or attended RL Turner High School, Dewitt Perry Middle...

US Life Expectancy Falls for Second Year in a Row

COVID, overdoses were main culprits in 2021's figures, CDC says

(Newser) - More than 20 years of gradual increases in American life expectancy have been wiped out by the twin plagues of COVID-19 and opioid overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency has released its final estimates for 2021, and "it's not a good year...

Teenager Thought He Bought a Percocet. It Killed Him

Zach Didier lost his life to fentanyl

(Newser) - In the wake of a 17-year-old's perplexing death, a soccer teammate offered his parents a clue. Zach Didier—an Eagle Scout and school-musical star who died of a suspected overdose—had no history of drug use or any evidence of drugs in his bedroom. But he had once said...

Dad: My Baby ODed on Fentanyl at Public Park

10-month-old now OK; San Francisco city officials, media trying to confirm exactly what happened

(Newser) - A nanny's trip this week to a Bay Area public park with 10-month-old twins in her care turned terrifying, with the family and local authorities sharing that one of the boys was exposed to fentanyl during their visit. Wendy Marroqui tells NBC Bay Area that she took Senna and...

Fentanyl-Laced Cocaine Blamed for Deaths of 3 'High-Achieving' New Yorkers

Police say the buyers were unaware that the coke they ordered contained deadly synthetic opioid

(Newser) - It's no secret that—although the heady Wolf of Wall Street days have passed—cocaine has remained popular among many high-achieving professionals in New York City. Per the Wall Street Journal , those professionals included Ross Mtangi, 40, a trading executive at Credit Suisse Group; Julia Ghahramani, 26, a first-year...

Former LA Angels Employee Gets 22 Years in Pitcher's Death

Judge added 2 years because of remarks Eric Kay made about Tyler Skaggs

(Newser) - Update: Former Los Angeles Angels staff member Eric Kay has been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for giving pitcher Tyler Skaggs the drugs that killed him. District Judge Terry Means said he was sentencing Eric Kay, the team's former communications director, to two years over the statutory...

Scott Adams Offers Eyebrow- Raising Take on Troubled Young Men

'Dilbert' creator sees only 2 options available: 'murder your own son or watch him die'

(Newser) - Scott Adams has had controversial takes on gun violence before, but his latest one, on the Highland Park mass shooting , is spurring backlash from those speaking on mental health illness and addiction. The 65-year-old creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip posted an eyebrow-raising series of tweets on Wednesday that discussed...

Suspected 'Mass Fentanyl Poisoning Event' Kills 9 in Florida

Authorities suspect other drugs were tainted with fentanyl

(Newser) - Nine people died over the holiday weekend in Gadsden County, Florida, in what officials are calling a "potential mass fentanyl poisoning event." Two women were found dead of an apparent drug overdose Friday, prompting the Gadsden County Sheriff's Office to issue an alert regarding drugs potentially tainted...

Canada Takes Bold Step to 'Remove the Shame' on Drugs

Small amounts of 'hard' drugs to be temporarily decriminalized in British Columbia to fight ODs

(Newser) - If you're busted in British Columbia with a small amount of hard drugs, you could soon see some grace, thanks to an innovative new program designed to deal with the OD crisis. The BBC reports that, starting at the end of January, drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA (ecstasy), and...

CDC Reveals 'Truly Staggering' Stat on Drug Overdoses

More than 107K Americans suffered fatal ODs last year

(Newser) - More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, setting another tragic record in the nation's escalating overdose epidemic, the CDC estimated Wednesday. The provisional 2021 total translates to roughly one US overdose death every five minutes. It marked a 15% increase from the previous record, set...

Report: Novelist's Son Dies of OD After Baby's Drug Death

Daniel Auster was charged earlier this month in daughter's death

(Newser) - Novelist Paul Auster has now lost both his only son and his baby granddaughter to drugs. Law enforcement sources tell the New York Post that Daniel Auster, 44, died Tuesday from what is believed to be an accidental drug overdose. Less than 10 days earlier, Auster was charged with manslaughter,...

Study Reveals Startling Stat on Synthetic Opioids

Seizures of pills tainted with fentanyl are up 50-fold in just 4 years

(Newser) - A new study led by New York University has a stat about drug seizures that speaks volumes about the nation's fentanyl problem : In the first quarter of 2018, authorities seized about 42,000 pills containing the highly potent drug, per the National Institutes of Health . In the last quarter...

Dentist Charged With Murder After Girlfriend's Overdose

Texts allegedly reveal James Ryan 'continuously fed' Sarah Harris' addiction

(Newser) - A Maryland dentist has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend, a former patient and employee, whom he was allegedly supplying with drugs. Sarah Harris, 25, had been living with 48-year-old James Michael Ryan in Clarksburg for seven months when she died of an anesthesia overdose...

Spring Break Goes Badly for West Point Cadets

7 people were hospitalized in Fort Lauderdale after ODing on powdery substance laced with fentanyl

(Newser) - Spring break in Fort Lauderdale didn't end well for one group this week, with seven people hospitalized after ODing on fentanyl, several of them confirmed to be West Point cadets. Police say that Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue responded to a call at a vacation rental home in Wilton Manors...

4 Arrested in Wire Actor's Overdose Death

Men allegedly sold Michael K. Williams fentanyl-laced heroin

(Newser) - Four men accused of selling actor Michael K. Williams the fentanyl-laced heroin that killed him have been arrested and could be facing long prison sentences. Williams, best known for playing Omar Little in The Wire, died in September from what officials ruled was an accidental drug overdose. The 54-year-old was...

Boy, 13, Dies After Ingesting Fentanyl, Collapsing at School

It's not clear how he got access to the dangerous opioid

(Newser) - A 13-year-old Connecticut boy died Saturday, two days after collapsing during gym class in his school's gymnasium due to a fentanyl overdose. Two other students who came in contact with the drug and were hospitalized at the same time have been released, USA Today reports. The mayor of Hartford,...

Animal Tranquilizers a Factor in More Fatal ODs

They're used as a cutting agent, and there's no antidote

(Newser) - Brooke Goodwin came home one night last March after being out with friends. She had just turned 23 the day before, had a good job, and was planning to go away with friends the following weekend. Her mother, whose bedroom is next door to the kitchen, heard her daughter get...

Arrests in Case of Women Who Were Left at Hospitals and Died

Christy Giles, Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola died in November

(Newser) - Three men have been arrested in the deaths of two women who were dropped at Los Angeles hospitals on the same day last month . Model and aspiring actress Christy Giles, 24, was pronounced dead Nov. 13, shortly after masked men in a black Toyota Prius without a license plate left...

The Number of Fatal ODs We Just Suffered Is Huge

Number crests 100K for first time ever

(Newser) - As if COVID wasn't enough of a mortality whammy, now this: The CDC on Wednesday announced that Americans suffered more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths in a 12-month period for the first time ever. Between May 2019 and April 2020 there were 78,056 overdose deaths. Over the...

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