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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose was the leading cause of injury death in 2013 — the most recent date available — among American 25 to 64 years old, surpassing deaths caused by motor vehicle traffic crashes; 71 percent involved opioid painkillers.

Some public health experts have bemoaned the lack of federal response and have argued that the Food and Drug Administration has exacerbated the problem by continuing to approve new opioids in a market already flooded with them.

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The doctors ran the ring with the help of crooked pharmacists and patient recruiters who helped push roughly 1 million painkillers on the street, authorities said. The charges come one day after state officials announced that drug overdose deaths are up 14% in Michigan, claiming the lives of 1,745 people in 2014 — with heroin and painkillers as the culprits.

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In a report that could fuel the growing political outcry against high drug prices, pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts said "opportunistic manufacturers" and "scheming" pharmacies helped drive up prices by 98.2 percent since 2011.

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The popularity of these medications has been blamed for surging rates of opiate addiction and death in the United States, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue new guidance urging doctors to reserve the medications for patients with acute cancer pain, those receiving palliative care and those in their final days of life. For treatment of chronic pain due to conditions like arthritis and back problems, doctors instead should try Tylenol, Advil or other non-addictive therapies, the guidelines recommend.

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“When a patient tells me that the opioid enables them to sleep at night, get out of bed and do their usual activities, I feel much more reassured than I do by the patient report of any pain score,� he wrote in JAMA Internal Medicine.

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A group of 22 medical experts convened by Johns Hopkins University and The Lancet have called today for the decriminalization of all nonviolent drug use and possession.
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In a lengthy review of the state of global drug policy, the Hopkins-Lancet experts conclude that the prohibitionist anti-drug policies of the past 50 years "directly and indirectly contribute to lethal violence, disease, discrimination, forced displacement, injustice and the undermining of people’s right to health."

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This isn’t the first time DEA has been asked to reconsider marijuana’s classification. In 2001 and 2006, DEA considered petitions, but decided to keep marijuana a Schedule I substance.

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The University of Mississippi, which functions as Uncle Sam's weed man, has an enormous amount of marijuana on hand, but its product would be laughed out of any Colorado dispensary, according to a recent inventory of the school's stash.
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The most powerful strain on the DEA ledger, a "reprocessed" batch numbered 1304-1, tops out at 13.7 percent THC. Most batches in the "high THC" section of the inventory are less than 8 percent.

The University of Mississippi's supply is essentially stuck in the 1970s, when THC content rarely broke the double digits.

Compare that to the potency available at dispensaries in Colorado, which recently legalized recreation pot. Having had years to experiment in medical marijuana industry, which has been legal for more than a decade, horticulturalists there have produced varieties packing 30 percent THC or more. The average THC level in retail stores is 18.7 percent, according to a state-sponsored study.