Lawsuits seeking to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for opioid addiction are mounting, the Wall Street Journal reports. Washington state and Louisiana have joined more than half a dozen other states that have filed actions against drugmakers and distributors. Washington accused Purdue Pharma L.P. of misrepresenting the addiction risk of opioid painkillers including OxyContin. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said two Washingtonians die each day on average from opioids, and that the drugs have killed nearly 10,000 in the state since 2000. The lawsuit in state court in Seattle seeks to recoup the profits Purdue made in Washington. “Blinded by pursuit of profits…they ignored what was going on,” Ferguson said. “That’s not right.” Purdue said Thursday it denied the allegations and is working with others “to solve this public health challenge.” On Wednesday, Louisiana’s Department of Health sued several manufacturers over their alleged role in what the state calls its escalating opioid crisis. That lawsuit claims that Purdue, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Johnson & Johnson, Endo International PLC, Allergan PLC and related companies played down the risks of the drugs in their marketing. The suit seeks the recovery of an unspecified amount of money Louisiana has spent on allegedly excessive prescriptions and related treatment costs. At least 85 cities, counties and states have filed lawsuits stemming from local opioid addiction. The suits target a mix of drug manufacturers and distributors, as well as some prescribing doctors. Other states that have sued include New Mexico, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Mississippi. More people were arrested last year for marijuana possession than for all crimes the FBI classifies as violent, according to crime data the FBI released on Monday, the Washington Post reports. Marijuana possession arrests edged up slightly in a year when voters in four states approved recreational marijuana initiatives and voters in three others approved medical marijuana measures. The figures are estimates, because not all law enforcement agencies provide detailed arrest information to the FBI. They show that the annual number of marijuana arrests is down from their peak in the mid-2000s and stands at levels last seen in the mid 1990s. Marijuana possession remains one of the single largest arrest categories, accounting for over 5 percent of all arrests last year. More than one in 20 arrests involved a marijuana possession charge, amounting to more than one marijuana possession arrest every minute. About 1.5 million people were arrested for drug-related offenses last year, up slightly year-over-year. Advocates for a more public health-centered approach to drug use say numbers like these show the drug war never really went away. “Criminalizing drug use has devastated families across the U.S., particularly in communities of color, and for no good reason,” said Maria McFarland Sánchez Moreno of the Drug Policy Alliance. The question of what to do about drug use has become urgent as deaths from opioid overdoses have skyrocketed. The Drug Policy Alliance says that Portugal, where the personal possession and use of drugs was decriminalized in 2001, has one of the lowest drug overdose rates in western Europe. The Trump administration is starting anew in its search for a Department of Homeland Security secretary, reports Politico. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-TX) had been considered the front-runner for the job, but he no longer is in contention, sources said. White House chief of staff John Kelly, who led DHS before being tapped for his new job, raised red flags about McCaul’s stance on immigration, which has at times diverged from that of President Trump. One person close to the process said the Trump administration is now “back to square one” on the search. The department is being headed by Acting Secretary Elaine Duke, a DHS veteran who was Kelly’s deputy, as it copes with the fallout from Trump’s new travel restrictions, his decision to end DACA and a series of powerful hurricanes that have ravaged Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. McCaul is in lockstep with Trump on many issues. He is pushing legislation that would provide $10 billion for a border wall with Mexico. He also has broken with the president over his travel ban, distancing himself from the restrictions and criticizing its haphazard rollout as “problematic.” McCaul has bashed Trump’s response to the Russia investigations, saying, “It sort of looks paranoid to me.” After a teenager was charged with killing another student in a New York City public school for the first time in more than 20 years, principals and parents grappled with the hazards of what appeared to be a bullying problem, the Wall Street Journal reports. Some educators reinforced the message that harassment can happen anywhere and students must be vigilant. Police said a dispute escalated during a morning history class at Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx on Wednesday. Abel Cedeño, 18, was charged with murder after allegedly stabbing a 15-year-old to death with a switchblade knife and seriously injuring a 16-year-old. Cedeño’s lawyers at the Legal Aid Society cited a “long history of bullying and intimidation Abel has endured.” Cedeño told detectives the two teens he stabbed were throwing pencils and papers at him before it turned violent. He said some students started harassing him before the start of the school year but didn’t specify that the teens he allegedly stabbed were among them. Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña sent families citywide a letter urging them to report concerns about safety or bullying. New York City has fostered campaigns to stop bullying through lessons in empathy, and training staff in conflict resolution. Thirteen percent of high school students reported in 2015 having been bullied at school, said the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The Urban Assembly School had no metal detectors until police installed them Thursday. Currently 88 city school buildings have scanners. Some parents argue that the devices keep their children safer. Opponents say they are degrading for students and waste their time in long lines. St. Louis activists protesting the acquittal of former police officer Jason Stockley have called for the resignation of Mayor Lyda Krewson and the firing of acting Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Stockley, who is white, was charged with murdering black drug suspect Anthony Lamar Smith after a high-speed pursuit in 2011. “We’re beyond disappointed” that the mayor chose to cancel opportunities for people’s voices to be heard, said activist Kayla Reed, alluding to Krewson’s calling off town-hall meetings she had scheduled. That’s why organizations such as St. Louis Action Council, ArchCity Defenders and Organization for Black Struggle came together to hold the People’s Town Hall on Thursday night. Organizers flashed on a screen a list of 12 demands they said city leaders must meet if they are serious about making fundamental changes that demonstrate that black lives indeed matter. In addition to the departures of Krewson and O’Toole, the activists want to remove from the bench Judge Timothy Wilson, who acquitted Stockley. Wilson is retiring in December. The group said it would campaign against Proposition P, an initiative on the Nov. 7 ballot that would increase the wages of city police officers. It is a proposal Krewson supports. “But there is really only one demand,” Reed said. “Stop killing us.” Most of the town hall meeting consisted of a question and answer session with city leaders, including state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr.; and Fifth Ward Precinct Committeeman Rasheen Aldridge. Franks and Aldridge were protesters in Ferguson after the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown. Most questions centered on police reform. A judge ordered Charlotte-Mecklenburg police to release video of the Sept. 6 police shooting death of Rueben Galindo, the first time a judge has said that footage can be released under a new public records law while an investigation is ongoing, the Charlotte Observer reports. District Attorney Andrew Murray has not decided whether to criminally charge the two officers involved. The ruling was the latest test of a state law passed last year that requires all requests for body camera and other footage to go through a court hearing before they can be released to the public. The video will be released Oct. 6 to Robert Dawkins of the group Action NC and to Charlotte Observer investigations editor Doug Miller, who filed separate requests for the footage that were heard together in court Thursday. Police will release the video publicly after Dawkins and Miller receive their copies. Galindo, 29, had called 911 and said he had a gun but no bullets. A dispatcher told officers that a Spanish-speaking man had called and wanted officers to help him. When officers arrived, they ordered him to drop the handgun but he did not obey their commands, police said. Chief Kerr Putney has said the officers shot Galindo because they perceived an imminent lethal threat. It’s likely to be a long time before the Russia investigations in Congress and in special counsel Robert Mueller’s office are concluded, reports USA Today. The constant stream of news about witnesses, subpoenas and closed-door testimony makes it feel like the probes have been going on forever, but Mueller has been working only for four and a half months and the three congressional committees conducting inquiries didn’t start digging in until spring. That’s not long when you consider that the Watergate investigation of Richard Nixon took about 20 months and the Whitewater investigation of Bill Clinton, which morphed into the Monica Lewinsky case, spanned about five years. Charles Tiefer of the University of Baltimore School of Law, who worked on the House Iran-Contra Committee’s investigation of the Reagan administration, said, “The 24-hour news cycle means that speculation outruns the actual investigation and demands responses.” Tiefer estimated that it could take Congress until spring and Mueller about a year to begin to show initial results, such as preliminary reports from the committees or the first round of indictments from the special counsel. Mueller, the Senate and House Intelligence committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee are investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Richard Ben-Veniste, who worked in the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and was chief minority counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee, said the Russia probe and Watergate are “roughly comparable in terms of the complexity.” Bruce Udolf, a criminal defense attorney in Florida who worked on the Whitewater case, believes Mueller is “moving at lightning speed” in putting together a team of investigators and questioning witnesses. He said, “I would be surprised if it was completed in less than a year.” Christopher Wray was formally installed as the FBI’s eighth director on Thursday. The president and former bureau directors usually appear at such events, but President Trump, James Comey and Robert Mueller didn’t attend, reports USA Today. Potentially awkward interactions between Trump, the FBI director he fired, and the former director leading the Russia investigation that shadows his administration never materialized. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who endorsed Comey’s removal, called Wray “right for the time” and his installation a “good day for America.” Sessions said, “It’s not about him, but about security, justice and the law. He has no hidden agendas.” Wray, former chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, where he worked under Comey during the George W. Bush administration, invoked the name of each of his predecessors – including Comey and Mueller – saying that “today’s FBI builds on that remarkable history.” During the 9/11 attacks, Wray was among the top federal officials who worked for days from a suite of offices in the building where he will now occupy the director’s suite. “When we need people to go where others fear to tread, we turn to you again and again,” he told FBI staffers. “The threats we face are significant, the premium on vigilance doesn’t stop.” A Baltimore judge held Maryland’s acting health secretary and other top officials in contempt of court and ordered them to open dozens of beds at state psychiatric hospitals by the end of the year, the Baltimore Sun reports. Judge Gale Rasin said acting Health Secretary Dennis Schrader and his staff had failed to follow court orders to place criminal defendants in state psychiatric hospitals. Some mentally ill defendants have languished in jails for weeks waiting for a bed at a state hospital. “Secretary Schrader: I say, ‘Fix this problem and do it now,’” Rasin said. She said the health department “has failed miserably to meet its responsibility,” calling the evaluation and treatment system for potentially mentally ill defendants “in a shambles.” Schrader told the Sun that Rasin is ignoring steps he is taking to add 95 psychiatric beds in a variety of locations. He said the judge is “stuck in the past. I’ve got to be worried about the future.” Rasin wrote that state health officials had failed to heed warnings of a need to expand state hospitals as far back as 2012, when Martin O’Malley was governor and a consultant recommended “a very significant increase in hospital beds.” Rasin said Schrader seemed to be “disconnected from the process.” One guard in Dallas County’s Medlock Youth Treatment Center watched football in a boss’s office. Another sat with her back to the kids. Many others kept their eyes glued to their phones or left the room unattended. During these times, boys locked up for sex offenses in Dallas County had ample opportunity to engage in sex acts with one another from November through April, according to a damning report by a state watchdog issued this week, the Dallas Morning News reports. The report found conditions at the center to be far worse than county officials have portrayed. The sexual contact among juvenile detainees continued because of a “lack of concern regarding safety, security and welfare” of the kids, says the report from the independent ombudsman for the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. At least five boys ages 13 to 17 engaged in the sex acts, including oral sex, investigators found. The incidents occurred while the youths were being forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor of a multipurpose room during periods of understaffing. The report said the youths slept on the floor — where they were aware of the gaps in supervision — for most nights over a period of six months. County Commissioner John Wiley Price, who requested the investigation, called for the firing of the Juvenile Justice Department’s executive director, Terry Smith. |
