Kate Lacroix was screaming at the top of her lungs on social media. Boulder teens were dying of fentanyl, swallowing pills that looked like real pharmaceuticals but instead were counterfeits laced with lethal doses of the synthetic opioid. “URGENT COMMUNITY WARNING,” she said in one February Facebook post, begging others to help spread the word. […]
opioid
Posted inCrime and Courts, Health, News
Colorado unveils plan to distribute $400 million in opioid settlement money
Roughly $400 million in settlement money expected to be secured by Colorado from drug companies sued for their alleged role in the opioid epidemic would be split between state and local governments under a tentative deal unveiled Thursday that calls for the money to be spent on building treatment facilities and bolstering prevention and education […]
Posted inColoradans, Health, News, Politics and Government
Colorado hospitals are giving patients take-home doses of the overdose antidote to fight the opioid crisis
When doctors write a prescription for the life-saving antidote to an opioid overdose, patients only bother to fill them about 5% of the time. But what if hospital physicians simply handed a vial of naloxone to the patients they worry are most likely to die, particularly those who were just rushed to the emergency room […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, Health, News
For months Colorado has quietly been in talks for another multibillion-dollar opioid settlement
For more than a year, Colorado has been locked in a high-profile legal battle with Purdue Pharma that has been recently bogged down amid a bankruptcy filing and disagreements over the size of a settlement. In a separate case, however, the state could soon secure millions of dollars to fight the opioid crisis from five […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, Health, News, Politics and Government
Purdue Pharma, facing opioid lawsuit from Colorado, is in settlement talks with attorneys general across the U.S.
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins, The Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio — State attorneys general and lawyers representing local governments said Tuesday they are in active settlement talks with Purdue Pharma, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin that is facing billions of dollars in potential liability for its role in the nation’s opioid crisis. Purdue has been […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Carman: The addicts in our families deserve justice for the corporate kingpins
The two weeks after we took in a relative with an opioid addiction were terrifying. There were the times when he was barely conscious, slouching on the sofa, staring into his laptop, uncommunicative, fighting to stay awake in the middle of the afternoon. There was the morning I walked into the dining room to find […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Colorado expands lawsuit against opioid-maker Purdue Pharma to include its owners, the Sackler family
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Monday announced that he is expanding the state’s lawsuit against opioid-manufacturer Purdue Pharma to include the pharmaceutical giant’s owners, the billionaire Sackler family, and a list of company executives. The move will allow state lawyers to put to use Colorado’s new consumer protection laws that raised the size of […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Death rates among pregnant women in Colorado are climbing. Suicide and overdose are to blame.
The meeting always begins with a moment of silence for the moms who are dead, a reminder to consider the humanity behind the data they are about to discuss. And then the doctors, midwives and mental health experts dive into the records to find the reasons pregnant women and new mothers died in Colorado. They […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, Health, News, Politics and Government
Oklahoma just agreed to a big settlement with the maker of Oxycontin. Should Colorado do the same?
Colorado’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the maker of the opioid Oxycontin, has gone largely silent since state Attorney General Phil Weiser took office, and a spokesman for Weiser on Wednesday declined to say whether the office would pursue a settlement. “We cannot confirm that there are settlement negotiations at this time,” the spokesman, Lawrence Pacheco, […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, Health, News
The opioid maker being sued by Colorado for fanning the overdose epidemic says everything it did was FDA-approved
Even as lawsuits across the country continue to churn out revelations about the aggressive marketing practices of opioid-maker Purdue Pharma, the company has asked a judge to dismiss the state of Colorado’s lawsuit against it. Its argument: All of its marketing was consistent with the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of its blockbuster pain pill […]