From 2006 to 2012, manufacturers shipped 76 billion opioid pills to pharmacies nationwide. More than 3.3 billion were shipped to New York State during that period. Of that total, 345 million pills were sent to Suffolk County. READ
Tag: opioid crisis
In a very real sense, history was made again March 11 when two men were arraigned on manslaughter charges for allegedly supplying heroin cut with fentanyl to a Riverhead man who died after using this deadly mix. READ
Across Suffolk County, 396 opioid-related deaths occurred in 2017 — more than one per day for the year. This year, as of Oct. 1, there have been 171 confirmed opioid deaths countywide. READ
With the nation in the throes of an opioid epidemic, more emphasis is being placed on preventing youth from starting down the path to addiction. A handful of East End groups dedicated to this mission offer year-round programming for students in an effort to help them avoid making decisions that experts say have the potential to spiral out of control. READ
One company, the Sackler family’s Purdue Pharma, has played a critical role in instigating an epidemic of opioid addiction in the United States that killed 72,000 Americans last year — more people than perished at the peak of the HIV epidemic or died in car wrecks or shootings last year.
Even now — as the failure to recognize opioid addiction as a chronic disease rather than a moral failing, and limits on insurance coverage keep people from long-term treatment — the painkiller industry is spending nine times more on lobbying to fight regulation than is spent by the powerful gun lobby. READ
An iconic image from the mid-1980s came from a group of New York City artists, who had “gathered over several months to provide support for one another in the face of AIDS,” as the Village Voice noted, and decided to make a poster “to address the epidemic then decimating their world.” It featured a pink triangle — a symbol of gay pride reclaimed from the Nazis — and a simple, powerful message: “Silence = Death.” READ