The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been taking steps to cut opioid misuse and overdoses by issuing guidelines to doctors who prescribe the powerful painkillers. While the recommendations are not legally binding, the agency urges physicians in the guidelines to only prescribe opioids if there are absolutely no other options, and to only prescribe a few days’ worth of pills at a time.
Another year has come and gone and the number of tragic, troubling deaths due to marijuana overdoses has not decreased.
That’s because if that number decreased, it would be in the negative. It’s 2016, and still no one has died from a marijuana overdose, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) numbers released last month.
Eight people in Massachusetts have died from overdoses of a particularly deadly batch of heroin in the past week, but detectives don’t know where it came from.
On Saturday, police confiscated 9,000 bags of “Hollywood” heroin in Springfield, Massachusetts. Cops had stepped up patrols in western Massachusetts after the 8 deaths, 3 of which occurred on New Year’s Day.
