[photo] Toby Talbot / APWith prescriptions dropping in the United States, companies have started to promote OxyContin and other opioid drugs in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. A former adjunct associate professor at Temple University has helped a leading maker of opioids promote potentially addictive pain medications in new foreign markets that have not yet seen an overdose crisis like that in the United States, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found. The physician, Joseph V. Pergolizzi Jr., is based in Naples, Fla., and has not been affiliated with Temple since June 2014, the school said. [continues 331 words]
A 1998 Survey Of High Schoolers Found Rates Similar To Those In '95. But More Had Tried Cocaine And Marijuana At A Young Age. TRENTON - New Jersey high schoolers used illegal drugs and alcohol last year at roughly the same levels as their counterparts did in 1995, according to a survey released yesterday by the state attorney general. Attorney General John J. Farmer Jr. said the level of drug use, while stable, remained too high. Four out of five of those surveyed had drunk alcohol at some point, 42 percent had smoked marijuana at least once, and 7.3 percent said they had used cocaine at least once. [continues 499 words]
TRENTON -- A day after Gov. Whitman ousted Col. Carl A. Williams as the head of the New Jersey State Police for saying that the drug trade is handled mostly by minorities, a top black leader and Democratic legislators demanded that she delay the nomination of her attorney general to the state Supreme Court until his office completes a review of the force. She refused to take that step but continued to fault Williams' comments as being insensitive. In an interview, she declined to discuss whether his remarks were factually correct, but said they damaged the credibility of the state police. "I'm not arguing with what he was saying. I'm arguing with how he said it, and when he said it, and the way he said it," Whitman said in an interview in her office. [continues 1188 words]
