Efforts to combat Philadelphia's opioid crisis with a supervised injection site could be stymied by a portion of federal law meant to protect neighborhoods during the crack epidemic of the 1980s.
Fentanyl, Inc. author Ben Westhoff says the opioid, while useful in hospitals, is killing more Americans as a street drug than any other in U.S. history. Here's how it moves from China to your corner.
Washington Post journalist Scott Higham says recently released evidence shows the drug industry purposely shipped big quantities of opioids to communities without regard for how they were being used.
The amount of meth seized in the U.S. more than doubled from 2017 to 2018. That translates to lots more meth, along with cocaine and other stimulants, on the streets — and likely more deaths.
Thousands of Massachusetts residents have been committed to treatment for addiction against their will. Some families say locking up addicts in prison isn't treatment. Others say it saves lives.
The U.S. government is intervening to stop the creation of a medical facility in Philadelphia where people could inject heroin without risk of overdose. Canada and Europe already have such sites.
As the number of people who inject drugs and share needles has soared, the rate of infection with hep C has climbed, too. Yet many drug treatment patients aren't tested for the liver-damaging virus.
Two years after East Liverpool, Ohio, gained notoriety from a viral photo of an overdosed couple, the community is coming to terms with its addiction problem — and taking tentative steps forward.
When fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, infiltrated the drug supply in the U.S. it had an immediate, dramatic effect on the overdose rate.
Keri Blakinger spent nearly two years locked up on narcotics charges before becoming a journalist. "I've been so privileged in so many ways to end up with hope and second chances," she says.
Within days of an OD from opioids or other drugs, users in Huntington, W.Va., are visited by a quick-response team at home, the hospital or in jail. Reversing an OD is just recovery's first step.
This medicine to treat opioid addiction is hard to come by — only a fraction of doctors can prescribe it. So some people trying to quit a heroin habit are turning to the black market for help.
A standoff is heating up between the Trump administration and local leaders who are trying to open facilities where people can use opioids under the eye of medical staff.
Author Beth Macy details opioids' odyssey from medicine to scourge, in her book about young heroin users, their long-suffering parents, doctors, drug company executives, cops, judges and drug dealers.
ELKO, Nev. (AP) — A month-long investigation into illegal drug trafficking in northeast Nevada has netted a quarter-pound (110 grams) of heroin and at least four arrests in Elko.
More than a dozen cities from San Francisco to New York are trying to open safe injection sites for heroin users. But worries about a crackdown from the Justice Department have local leaders on edge.
Infants do better with their parents, studies find, as long as parents have support to get and stay sober. This program starts during pregnancy, to rally and train a strong family support network.
The powerful opioid fentanyl is showing up in batches of cocaine, threatening a new wave of opioid overdoses. Some doctors, drug users and law enforcement wonder if the contamination is deliberate.
Economists tracking federal mortality data say the opioid crisis is undercutting the productivity of people in their prime working years — 30s and 40s.
Opioids were a main driver in roughly 1,200 drug overdose deaths in Philadelphia last year. That's four times the city's murder rate. It's time, some officials say, to supervise, not criminalize.
Officials across Arizona agree that the state must solve its growing opioid problem. But some people fear that several strategies under consideration encourage drug use.
Hurricane Harvey disrupted treatment for people addicted to opioids. Many need to get connected to a specialty clinic that can provide medication-assisted treatment.
Scientists are trying to develop a vaccine to block the euphoria of heroin without interfering with other pain relief. The Trump administration hopes the approach might help with the opioid epidemic.
![Bags of heroin, some laced with fentanyl, picked up in a 2016 New York City drug bust. "Basically, [fentanyl] is so cheap to produce and it's so powerful, that drug dealers began realizing it was a way to increase their profits," <em>Fentanyl, Inc. </em>](https://knpr.org/sites/default/files/public/styles/thumbnail/public/images/npr-story/757101225_1449456291.jpg?itok=N19p1YW8 "Drew Angerer, Getty Images")
