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New CVS Rules May Affect Patients Prescribed Opioids
The $315 million CVS opioid settlement announced October 13 led to a new company proposal to block suspicious prescribers at the pharmacy counter. That can certainly reduce the number of opioids prescribed. But researcher Alex Smolak poses one question. If CVS refuses a prescriber, a legit patient might be further hurt. Settlement Requirements The agreement …
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Naloxone-Resistant Fentanyl Mix Sweeping Across Ohio and Illinois
A new report from Ohio and Illinois documents how fentanyl is increasingly blended with synthetic animal tranquilizers. This time, naloxone doesn’t work. The reporting follows Mike, a 48-year-old army veteran in Columbus who has lived with opioid addiction for 20 years. His drugs are cut with “xylazine, and the one we can’t pronounce.” That second …
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$3M Grant Fights Fentanyl Deaths With Opioid Overdose Training
A new $3 million federal grant will put opioid overdose reversal training into more hands across two of Texas’s largest counties. The University of Houston will use the four-year grant from SAMHSA to expand FRONTLINES, a Houston-based program that trains first responders in Harris and Fort Bend counties to recognize an opioid overdose and administer …
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Light Activated Opioid Could Reduce Opioid Addiction Risk
A new type of painkiller could one day deliver morphine-level relief without opioid addiction. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Weill Cornell Medicine built an experimental opioid compound that’s switched on and off with light. Doing so activates pain relief while keeping the drug out of the brain. The findings are preclinical. But they …
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Ohio Cychlorphine Overdoses Signal New Opioid Addiction Threat
Ohio officials now contend with a synthetic opioid that most folks haven’t heard of until an overdose hits. Nearly 50 overdoses in the last three months involved cychlorphine, which is 100x deadlier than fentanyl. Even though Ohio has many programs to battle drugs, including Narcotics Anonymous programs on the ground, new drugs up the ante. …
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Kratom Products Sold in Gas Stations and Vape Shops Now DEA Schedule 1
Federal regulators are tightening the legal status of compounds made from kratom. These changes are already ushering new patients through clinic doors. The DEA temporarily categorized mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MP), MGM-15, and MGM-16 into Schedule 1 as of August 26, 2026, due to a rapid rise in poisonings, addiction and overdose deaths. The Opioid Crisis Takes …
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Orphine Opioids Emerge as Fentanyl Era Shifts in 22 States
A new class of synthetic opioids is spreading through the US illicit drug supply as the fentanyl era shifts, and it’s accelerating. Orphine analogs were detected in 22 states. The first on the list is cychlorphine, first detected in 2024 and is the most common orphine listed in the United Nations Office on Drugs and …
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Opioid Addiction Diagnoses Climb 33 Percent Since 2022
Diagnoses of opioid addiction among commercially insured Americans climbed 32.7% between 2022 and 2025, according to FAIR Health’s Opioid Tracker’s report. The national rate rose from 449 patients per 100,000 in 2022 to 596 per 100,000 in 2025. The Opioid Tracker is a free interactive map of opioid use disorders among commercially insured patients. The …
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CVS Pharmacy Agrees to $315M Opioid Settlement
CVS Pharmacy just agreed to pay $315 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit involving its role in how the company handled opioid prescriptions. The government alleged that CVS violated the Controlled Substances Act by filling illegitimate prescriptions for powerful opioids. The lawsuit claimed that prescriptions from “pill mills” led to pharmacists to dispense opioids …
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Hamilton County, Tennessee Naloxone Outreach Targets Opioid Crisis
Hamilton County in Tennessee hit 89 overdose-related opioid deaths up to September 2026. That compares with 141 deaths reported for 2025. Fentanyl was involved in six out of 10 deaths in the county’s midyear report. To be clear, Tennessee and its sister states have resources to combat narcotics, including local Narcotics Anonymous chapters in most …
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