Fentanyl overdoses are now the top cause of death among U.S. residents ages 18-45, surpassing suicide, car accidents and COVID, according to an analysis of federal data by opioid awareness organization Families Against Fentanyl. To prevent such deaths, FentCheck’s co-founders and a team of volunteers regularly visit a network of businesses in Oakland, San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia to replenish stocks of the test strips.
A record number of Americans died of drug overdoses during 2020 as pandemic lockdowns made getting treatment difficult and dealers laced more drugs with a powerful synthetic opioid, according to data released on July 14 and health officials.
The U.S. Justice Department signaled support for legislation to extend by seven months a ban on illegal copycat versions of fentanyl, the powerful synthetic painkiller that has helped fuel the nation’s opioid epidemic.
New York state filed civil charges accusing Johnson & Johnson of insurance fraud for downplaying the risks of opioid painkillers, including to doctors and elderly patients.
The Trump administration has resolved an internal dispute over how to handle new variants of fentanyl that it believes can beef up the fight against the deadly synthetic painkiller without hindering research to ease the opioid crisis, according to a draft agreement seen by Reuters.
Lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee urged the Trump administration to conduct a scientific review of a Justice Department-backed bill to classify all illicit chemical knockoffs of the potent painkiller fentanyl in the same legal category as heroin.
China will expand the range of fentanyl-related substances the country defines as controlled narcotics, a Chinese security official said, blaming U.S. culture for abuse of the drug.
