Free Republic

A decade ago, most people thought of Tylenol (acetaminophen) as a medicine for fever, malaise and minor aches and pains. Nobody imagined that it would become the go-to drug for treating moderate, let alone severe, postoperative pain. But this is just what has happened. Thanks to pressure from lawmakers, government agencies and policymakers who inserted themselves into the patient-doctor relationship, patients became the victims of the never-ending war on drugs. Now, doctors frequently offer only acetaminophen to treat painful conditions despite the drug’s inability to remedy them. Policymakers’ exaggerated fear of opioids has pressured hospitals, doctors and dentists to switch...

Two women who were dumped unconscious at different Los Angeles hospitals late last year by masked men died of multiple drug intoxication, the Los Angeles coroner has ruled. Christy Giles, a 24-year-old model, and her friend Hilda Marcela Cabrales Arzola, 26, were dropped off at the hospitals on Nov. 13 by the men in a black Toyota without license plates, Los Angeles police said at the time. Giles, 24, died the same days she was dropped at the hospital of multiple drug intoxication, with cocaine, fentanyl, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) — a date rape drug — and ketamine in her system,...

18.6% increase compared with 2019... The UK recorded its highest ever year-on-year increase of alcohol-related deaths during 2020, with COVID-19 lockdowns playing a huge role in the rise. Figures released today by the the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that there were 8,974 deaths “from alcohol-specific causes,” an 18.6% increase compared with 2019. That represents the highest year-on-year increase since records began being collected in 2001. In an attempt to deflect the elephant in the living room, the ONS insisted that there are “many complex factors” to consider in explaining the deaths. However, the Alcohol Change charity warned last...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — As the photographer pulled his 2000 Ford Explorer into a soccer field, the crackle of his police scanner was broken by a lone accordion riff. The riff, a fragment of a "narcocorrido" glorifying drug smugglers, was an announcement that the death toll in Mexico's drug war – already above 4,000 this year – had just risen. Hector Dayer already knew that as he looked out at the seven bodies, bound, beaten and repeatedly shot. What he didn't know was whether yet another colleague was among the victims. Two weeks earlier, Dayer had photographed a friend –...

PHILADELPHIA -- A judge reinstated murder charges Monday against a man for allegedly setting up a basement marijuana-growing operation that overheated and started a blaze that killed two firefighters. Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner ordered Daniel Brough, 36, to stand trial on charges of third-degree murder. The firefighters died Aug. 20 after becoming trapped in the burning house in the city's Port Richmond neighborhood. Lerner, overturning a lower court decision, said it will be up to a jury to decide whether Brough knowingly and recklessly created a situation that sparked the blaze. Assistant Fire Marshal Arthur Czajkowski testified that the...