Vicodin news stories on Newser

Welcome to 'Ground Zero' for America's Pill Poppers

Mark Russell — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 12:28:57 CDT

A tiny coal-mining town of barely 300 people and no supermarket is home to one booming business: pharmacies. In Kermit, West Virginia, two Sav-Rites alone moved 3.2 million doses of hydrocodone in 2006—a tad more than the 97,000 doses the average pharmacy sells in a year, reports...

Painkiller Sales Exploding in New Parts of US

Kate Schwartz — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:10:06 CDT

Prescription painkiller addiction is a problem that's only getting uglier, reports the AP after analyzing a slew of DEA and pharmaceutical figures. The report focuses on sales of America's leading two prescription painkillers: oxycodone (the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet, and Percodan) and hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco, and Lortab). Among its...

Drug Deaths Soar Past Traffic Fatalities

Mark Russell — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 06:07:05 CDT

For the first time since the government started tracking drug-related deaths in 1979, narcotics have topped traffic fatalities—37,485 for drugs vs. 36,284 for accidents in 2009 (the most recent year available), reports the LA Times . But the big culprit isn't street drugs: it's prescription pills like Xanax,...

Cops Crack $1 Million Craigslist Drug Ring

Emily Rauhala — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:45:42 CDT

The list of Craigslist crimes keeps growing. Police have now busted a $1million dollar drug ring operating through the site. The group allegedly shipped drugs like Vicodin and Adderall from California to Brooklyn where web-savvy wholesalers pawned the pharm off to neighborhood yuppies, reports the New York Daily News . The...

TMZ: Woods Was Admitted to Hospital as OD

Rob Quinn — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:12:00 CST

Tiger Woods was admitted to the hospital listed as an overdose after his SUV crash, according to sources at Florida's Health Central Hospital. Woods—whose wife handed paramedics bottles of Ambien and Vicodin—was having trouble breathing and doctors used a respiration tube to help him, the sources tell TMZ.

Elin to Cops: Tiger Was Drinking Before Crash

Nick McMaster — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:59:19 CST

Tiger Woods was drinking before his SUV crash, a newly released police report shows. Elin Nordegren Woods told the officers at the scene her husband had consumed alcohol and had prescriptions for Ambien and Vicodin the day of the crash. The new details come from a police report leaked to...

Cocaine Contributed to Billy Mays' Death: Autopsy

Nick McMaster — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:31:28 CDT

Cocaine figured into Billy Mays’ death, TMZ reports. An autopsy found traces of the drug in Mays' system, suggesting that the TV pitchman used it a few days before his death. The report lists “cocaine use” as a contributing cause of death, along with heart disease. The autopsy also found...

Easy on the Tylenol: FDA Panel

Harry Kimball — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:25:01 CDT

An outside panel reporting to the Food and Drug Administration recommended today that the maximum daily dosage of Tylenol be reduced and the Extra Strength variety of the painkiller be available only by prescription, Bloomberg reports. The panel of advisers, whose suggestions are nonbinding, noted acetaminophen’s effect on the liver....

Jackson Drug Cocktail: 3 Painkillers, 2 Anti-Depressants

Rob Quinn — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:07:25 CDT

The Sun gets the details on the potentially lethal cocktail of prescription drugs Michael Jackson was on in the months before his death . Jackson took addictive narcotic painkillers Demerol and Diluadid daily, the Sun's sources say, and had recently added Vicodin to the mix. He also took a muscle relaxant...