Largest-ever U.S. border seizure of fentanyl made in Arizona: officials

Packets of fentanyl mostly in powder form and methamphetamine, which U.S. Customs and Border Protection say they seized from a truck crossing into Arizona from Mexico, is on display during a news conference at the Port of Nogales, Arizona, U.S., January 31, 2019. Courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Handout via REUTERS

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – U.S. border agents have seized 254 pounds (115 kg) of fentanyl that was stashed in a truck crossing into Arizona from Mexico, marking the largest single bust of the powerful opioid ever made at an American border checkpoint, officials said on Thursday.

The 26-year-old Mexican driver of a cucumber-toting tractor-trailer was arrested after agents on Saturday at the border station in Nogales discovered the fentanyl in a secret compartment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 100 times stronger than morphine that can kill with a 2-milligram dose, has been blamed for fueling an opioid crisis in the United States. It gained notoriety after an overdose of the painkiller was deemed to have killed pop singer Prince in 2016.

The United States had a record 72,000 deaths from drug overdoses in 2017, with opioids responsible for most of those fatalities. President Donald Trump has declared opioid addiction a public health emergency.

The latest seizure in Nogales is the largest-ever confiscation of fentanyl by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, officials said in a statement.

The fentanyl was worth an estimated $3.5 million, based on valuation criteria of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Hugo Nunez, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said in an email.

The drugs were found after the truck was pulled over for a secondary inspection and drug-sniffing canines picked up an odor, Michael Humphries, the Nogales Area Port director, told reporters.

The driver, Juan Antonio Torres-Barraza, was charged in federal court in Tucson with two counts of drug possession with the intent to distribute.

An attorney for Torres-Barraza could not immediately be reached for comment.

Another 395 pounds (180 kg) of methamphetamine, worth about $1.1 million, also was confiscated from the truck, officials said.

“Fentanyl is trafficked into the United States largely from China and Mexico but it is not possible to determine which country is a bigger supplier, the DEA said in a report in October.

The U.S. Department of Justice, in a report last year to the U.S. Congress, has said the drug is primarily shipped to the United States from China through cargo containers or international mail. But Chinese fentanyl is sometimes sent to criminal groups in Mexico or Canada and smuggled across the border, the report said.

Last month, Mexican officials busted a fentanyl lab in Mexico City.

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Grebler)

U.S. and Mexico to set up joint team to fight drug cartels

FILE PHOTO: An agent of the office of the Attorney General of Mexico carries a package of seized marijuana at the site of a passageway Mexican authorities on Thursday attributed to the cartel of fugitive kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in Tijuana, October 24, 2015. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes/File Photo

By Karen Pierog

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexico will set up a joint team in Chicago targeting Mexican drug cartels and their leaders and finances, to try to stem a flow of drugs that has led to a spike in U.S. overdose deaths, officials said on Wednesday.

DEA Chief of Operations Anthony Williams said at a joint news conference with Mexican government officials in Chicago that targeting cartel finances was key because “the sole purpose of these entities is one thing and one thing only – money.”

Mexico remains the principal highway for cocaine to the United States and has become the top source of heroin, which is fueling a surge in opioid addiction in the United States. It is also a major supplier of methamphetamines.

“It’s not just a Chicago problem, it’s a national problem. Actually, it’s an international problem,” Brian McKnight, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Chicago Field Division, said at the news conference.

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a left-leaning nationalist, has vowed to shake up Mexico’s war on drug cartels after he takes power in December. He wants to rewrite the rules, aides have said, suggesting negotiated peace and amnesties rather than a hardline strategy that critics say has only perpetuated violence.

However, a change of direction without the United States could increase friction between the neighbors, who have been often at loggerheads since Donald Trump became U.S. president.

Trump has irked Mexico with demands that it pay for a border wall and his comments that it does nothing to slow illegal immigration. He has also pushed to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to favor the United States.

But despite difference with the Trump administration on migration and trade issues, officials and security experts in the United States have applauded long-running bilateral efforts to crack down on drug gangs.

For the past 12 years, Mexico has fought the violent cartels by deploying thousands of police, soldiers, and intelligence officers.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog, Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Additional reporting by Dave Graham in Mexico City, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Kentucky accuses Endo of contributing to opioid epidemic

Kentucky accuses Endo of contributing to opioid epidemic

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – Kentucky accused units of Endo International Plc on Monday of contributing to drug overdoses and an opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing its painkiller Opana ER, the latest lawsuit by state or local governments against the drugmaker.

Kentucky Attorney General Steve Beshear said the lawsuit would seek to hold Endo responsible for illegally building a market for the long-term use of opioids in the state as part of an effort to boost corporate profits.

The lawsuit, filed in a state court in Kentucky, said Endo sought to overstate the benefits of using Opana for the long-term treatment of chronic pain while downplaying the risk of addiction, helping to fuel a public health epidemic.

“My office refuses to sit back and watch families be torn apart while opioid manufacturers like Endo line their pockets at the expense of our communities and our future,” Beshear said in a statement.

Endo’s chief legal officer, Matthew Maletta, said in a statement that Beshear’s allegation that the drugmaker was trying to profit at the expense of people’s health was “patently offensive.”

“We intend to vigorously defend the company against the claims set forth in this lawsuit,” Maletta said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in over 33,000 deaths in 2015, the latest year for which data is available. The death rate has continued rising, according to estimates.

Endo has faced a wave of similar lawsuits over the opioid epidemic by Louisiana, New Mexico, Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio, as well as several cities and counties. Many of those cases target other drugmakers as well.

In July, Endo agreed to withdraw the long-acting opioid painkiller Opana ER from the market after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared that its benefit did not outweigh public health risks associated with opioid abuse.

In a statement, Beshear called the removal of Opana ER from the market an important step but said that Endo’s practices had already by then harmed people in his state. His office’s lawsuit seeks penalties and compensatory and punitive damages.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Brown and Grant McCool)

Trump to issue emergency declaration next week on opioids

Trump to issue emergency declaration next week on opioids

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would declare next week a national emergency on opioid abuse, a move that could give states access to federal funds to fight the drug crisis.

The United States is battling a surge in opioid-related deaths, including 33,000 lives lost in 2015, more than any year on record, according to federal data.

“The opioid is a tremendous emergency,” Trump told Fox Business Network. “Next week, I’m going to (be) declaring an emergency, (a) national emergency on drugs.”

Trump is expected to provide a preview of his plans for tackling drug demand and the opioid crisis in remarks on Thursday.

Trump said in August that he would declare opioid abuse a national emergency.

Opioids, primarily prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl – a drug 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine – are fueling the drug overdoses.

The declaration by Trump could help unlock more support and resources to address the drug overdose epidemic, such as additional funding and expanded access to various forms of treatment, and it gives the government more flexibility in waiving rules and restrictions to expedite action.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Washington state sues OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma

Kentucky accuses Endo of contributing to opioid epidemic

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – Washington state on Thursday sued OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, becoming the latest state or local government to file a lawsuit seeking to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for a national opioid addiction epidemic.

The city of Seattle also filed a separate lawsuit against Purdue as well as units of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Johnson & Johnson, Endo International Plc and Allergan plc.

The lawsuit by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson accused Purdue of deceptive marketing of OxyContin and convincing doctors and the public that its drugs had a low-risk of addiction and were effective for treating chronic pain.

He said he would be seeking to force Purdue to pay a “significant” sum for engaging in marketing practices that downplayed the addictiveness of its drugs, allowing it to earn billions of dollars while fuelling the opioid crisis.

“I don’t know how executives at Purdue sleep at night,” Ferguson told reporters.

Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue said in a statement it was “deeply troubled” by the opioid crisis and that its U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved products account for just 2 percent of all opioid prescriptions.

“We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense,” Purdue said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in over 33,000 deaths in 2015, the latest year for which data is available. The death rate has continued rising, according to estimates.

The lawsuits followed a wave of cases against opioid manufacturers and distributors by Louisiana, West Virginia, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as well as several cities and counties.

Purdue and three executives pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal charges related to the misbranding of OxyContin, which is used to relieve pain, and agreed to pay a total of $634.5 million to resolve a U.S. Justice Department probe.

That year, the privately held company also reached a $19.5 million settlement with 26 states and the District of Columbia. It had agreed in 2015 to pay $24 million to resolve a lawsuit by Kentucky.

In filing his lawsuit in King County Superior Court in Seattle on Thursday, Ferguson said he was breaking off from an ongoing multi-state probe by various attorneys general into companies that manufacture and distribute opioids.

While Ferguson said looked forward to seeing its results, “we felt we had a case ready to go.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Susan Thomas and Tom Brown)

Unbudgeted: How the opioid crisis is blowing a hole in small-town America’s finances

Unbudgeted: How the opioid crisis is blowing a hole in small-town America's finances

By Paula Seligson and Tim Reid

INDIANA, Pa./CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (Reuters) – As deaths mount in America’s opioid crisis, communities on the front lines face a hidden toll: the financial cost.

Ross County, a largely rural region of 77,000 people an hour south of Columbus, Ohio, is wrestling with an explosion in opioid-related deaths – 44 last year compared to 19 in 2009. The drug addiction epidemic is shattering not just lives but also stressing the county budget.

About 75 percent of the 200 children placed into state care in the county have parents with opioid addictions, up from about 40 percent five years ago, local officials say. Their care is more expensive because they need specialist counseling, longer stays and therapy.

That has caused a near doubling in the county’s child services budget to almost $2.4 million from $1.3 million, said Doug Corcoran, a county commissioner.

For a county with a general fund of just $23 million, that is a big financial burden, Corcoran said. He and his colleagues are now exploring what they might cut to pay for the growing costs of the epidemic, such as youth programs and economic development schemes.

“There’s very little discretionary spending in our budget to cut. It’s really tough,” Corcoran said.

Cities, towns and counties across the United States are struggling to deal with the financial costs of a drug addiction epidemic that killed 33,000 people in 2015 alone, data and interviews with more than two dozen local officials and county budget professionals shows. (For graphics on the opioid crisis click here: http://tmsnrt.rs/2hO4YC7)

The interviews and data provide one of the first glimpses into the financial impact on local governments but it is far from complete because there is no central database collating information from counties and states. So, the true scale is still mostly hidden from view.

Opioids, primarily prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl – a drug 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine – are fueling the drug overdoses.

President Donald Trump last month called the epidemic a “national emergency” but has not yet made an official national emergency declaration. Such a move would give states access to federal funds to fight it.

BUILDING A PICTURE

Counties grappling with rising overdoses face higher costs in emergency call volumes, medical examiner and coroner bills, and overcrowded jails and courtrooms, said Matt Chase, executive director of the National Association of Counties, which represents 3,069 county and local governments.

At his group’s July annual meeting, a presentation where county officials shared tips on tackling the opioid crisis, and the budget problems the crisis is triggering, played to a packed room, Chase said.

The organization is in the early stage of collecting information to build a more complete picture of the financial impact of the crisis on county budgets, Chase said.

Indiana County, Pennsylvania, a mountainous, predominantly rural region, provides a snapshot of how the crisis is stressing local services and budgets.

Its county seat, the borough of Indiana, is home to a modern college campus and a main street lined by restaurants and American flags. Yet beneath its outward tranquility, the opioid epidemic is everywhere, said David Rostis, an undercover detective and head of the county’s drug task force.

On a recent ride-along in Rostis’ car, he points to a building where a doctor used to sell opioid prescriptions for sex; a large, affluent home where a teenager died of an overdose; a trail where a drug-related killing recently occurred; and the local gas station where a woman recently overdosed and died in her car while people passed by.

In 2016, the county’s drug overdose death rate was 50.6 deaths per 100,000, compared to the state average of 36.5.

Autopsy and toxicology costs there have nearly doubled in six years, from about $89,000 in 2010 to $165,000 in 2016, county data shows.

Court costs are soaring, mainly because of the expense of prosecuting opioid-related crimes and providing accused with a public defender, local officials say.

The county is using contingency funds to pay for the added coroner costs, said Mike Baker, the county’s top government official. Last year, the county drew $63,000 from those funds, up from $19,000 in 2014, he said. In 2014, the county saw 10 drug-related deaths. In 2016, the number had grown to 53.

In Mercer County, West Virginia, 300 miles (483 km) to the south of Indiana County, opioid-related jail costs are carving into the small annual budget of $12 million for the community of 62,000 people.

The county’s jail expenses are on course to increase by $100,000 this year, compared to 2015. The county pays $48.50 per inmate per day to the jail, and this year the jail is on course to have over 2,000 more “inmate days” compared to 2015, according to county data.

“At least 90 percent of those extra jail costs are opioid-related,” said Greg Puckett, a county commissioner who sits on a national county opioid task force. “We spend more in one month on our jail bill than we spend per month on economic development, our health department and our emergency services combined.”

West Virginia has been on the front line of the opioid crisis. In 2015, the state led the nation in drug overdose death rates for the third consecutive year. Preliminary numbers for 2016 recorded 883 drug overdose deaths, with 755 involving at least one opioid, up from 629 total deaths in 2014.

AUTOPSIES INC.

Few know the opioid crisis like the father-son duo Sidney and Curtis Goldblatt. The pair run two companies, ForensicDx for autopsies and MolecularDx for drug testing, out of Windber, Pennsylvania. Together they conduct autopsies for 10 Pennsylvania counties, including Indiana, charging between $2,000 and $3,000 per body.

In 2014, overdoses represented about 40 percent of the deaths they handled, the Goldblatts said. Last year, that shot up to 62 percent. Goldblatt senior has been performing autopsies for 50 years and says he has never seen anything on the scale of the current epidemic. When he started, a drug overdose was rare.

The pair opened ForensicDx in 2014 with a staff of three, serving only three counties. That’s grown to seven staff and 10 counties, mainly to meet demand from drug-related deaths, the Goldblatts said.

Indiana County’s ambulance service is also under financial stress because of the opioid crisis. The county’s primary ambulance provider, Citizens’ Ambulance Service, has lost more than $100,000 since 2016 alone on opioid calls, said Randy Thomas, director of operations.

The non-profit is reimbursed only if an opioid overdose patient is transported to the hospital. It doesn’t get paid for successfully treating people who have overdosed but then refuse to go to the hospital, Thomas said.

People brought back from the brink of death after a dose of the life-saving drug naloxone, also known as Narcan, often awake angry and combative and refuse hospitalization, Thomas said.

As costs related to the opioid epidemic increase, Indiana County commissioner Baker isn’t sure what will happen next. Unless the state or federal government intervene, the county will have to either cut services or increase taxes, Baker said.

“This has introduced an entirely different metric, an entirely different level of unpredictability in budgeting,” he said.

For all the budget problems Baker faces because of the crisis, the human toll is what distresses him most. Last fall, Baker’s nephew died of a fentanyl overdose. He was 23. Talking about his nephew’s death, Baker pauses to collect his thoughts.

“It is a most painful and difficult experience and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone in the world,” he said.

(Editing by Jason Szep and Ross Colvin)

Trump vows to ‘win’ against opioid epidemic

Paramedics display a dose of the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan, or Naloxone Hydrochloride, in an ambulance in Peabody, Massachusetts, U.S., August 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By James Oliphant

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump promised to win the fight against a U.S. epidemic of opioid drug use, but offered no new steps to do so and did not act on a recommendation made by a presidential commission that he declare a national emergency.

Trump spoke at an event he had billed as a “major briefing” on the opioid crisis during a two-week “working vacation” at his private golf club in New Jersey. He also used the appearance to unexpectedly issue a stern warning to North Korea over its threats to the United States.

The Republican president said the United States has no alternative but to stem spreading opioid use, but more than six months into his presidency announced no new policies to combat a public health crisis that kills more than 100 Americans daily.

“I’m confidant that by working with our healthcare and law enforcement experts we will fight this deadly epidemic and the United States will win,” Trump told reporters. “We’re also very, very tough on the southern border where much of this comes in, and we’re talking to China, where certain forms of man-made drug comes in, and it is bad.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the administration was still working to devise “a comprehensive strategy” to be presented to Trump “in the near future.”

A commission created by Trump to study opioid abuse urged him last week to declare a national emergency to address what it called an opioids crisis, framing its death toll in the context of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. An emergency declaration could free up federal resources for the effort.

“The resources that we need or the focus that we need to bring to bear to the opioid crisis at this point can be addressed without the declaration of an emergency, although all things are on the table for the president,” Price told a later news briefing.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in more than 33,000 U.S. deaths in 2015, the latest year for which data is available, and estimates show the death rate has continued rising.

The commission, headed by Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, recommended steps such as waiving a federal rule that restricts the number of people who can get residential addiction treatment under the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor and disabled.

The commission cited government data showing that since 1999 U.S. opioid overdoses have quadrupled, adding that nearly two thirds of U.S. drug overdoses were linked to opioids such as heroin and the powerful painkillers Percocet, OxyContin and fentanyl.

‘THE LOSING SIDE’

Speaking alongside Price, White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway said, “We are a nation that consumes legal and illegal drugs at a very high and alarming rate. The problem is very complicated, and currently we are on the losing side of this war.”

Conway said the crisis cannot be solved overnight, and that “most of the great work is being done at the state and local levels.” Conway called it a “nonpartisan issue in search of bipartisan support and bipartisan solutions.”

Even before Trump’s event, the Democratic National Committee slammed him, with spokesman Daniel Wessel saying in a statement: “Trump promised he’d come to the aid of communities ravaged by the opioid epidemic, but so far he’s done nothing for them.”

Trump’s initial federal budget called for a 2 percent increase in drug treatment programs and would provide funds to increase border security to stop the flow of drugs into the country.

Substance abuse treatment activists have criticized his proposed cuts to federal prevention and research programs as well as his calls to shrink Medicaid, which covers drug treatment for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Officials from New Hampshire criticized Trump last week after a leaked transcript of a January conversation with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto showed Trump had called the New England state, hard-hit by the opioid epidemic, a “drug-infested den.”

New Hampshire sued OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP on Tuesday, joining several state and local governments in accusing the drugmaker of engaging in deceptive marketing practices that helped fuel opioid addiction.

The lawsuit followed similar ones against Purdue and other drugmakers by Oklahoma, Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri and several cities and counties in California, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee and New York.

Price said Trump’s administration was taking no position on such suits.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Susan Cornwell; Writing by Alistair Bell and Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by Will Dunham)

Heroin use, addiction up sharply in the U.S.: study

FILE PHOTO - A man injects himself with heroin using a needle obtained from the People's Harm Reduction Alliance, the nation's largest needle-exchange program, in Seattle, Washington April 30, 2015. REUTERS/David Ryder/File Photo

By Patricia Reaney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Heroin use in the United States has risen five-fold in the past decade and dependence on the drug has more than tripled, with the biggest jumps among whites and men with low incomes and little education, researchers said on Wednesday.

Whites aged 18 to 44 accounted for the biggest rise in heroin addiction, which has been fueled in part by the misuse of opioid prescription drugs.

The findings are troubling because the people most affected have few resources to deal with the problem, said Dr. Silvia Martins, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and her colleagues.

“We are seeing that heroin use has increased in the past 10 years,” Martins said in a phone interview. “It is more prominent among whites with lower incomes and education and young adults.”

Heroin use, which includes those who have tried the drug but not become dependent on it, and addiction also rose more among unmarried adults. Although a jump was seen among women, it as was not as prominent as for men.

The researchers found no differences in heroin use or addiction among the major regions of the country.

The findings, published online in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, followed a statement from the American College of Physicians calling for drug addiction and substance abuse disorders to be treated as a chronic medical condition like diabetes or hypertension.

It also coincided with the expected appointment of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to head a federal commission to combat the problem. Christie has declared opioid drug abuse a public health crisis.

Martins agreed drug addiction should be treated as an illness.

“By recognizing it is a disease, more people will become aware that they need to seek help, or if they are frequent users, to know that addiction is preventable,” she said.

Martins and her colleagues uncovered the trend by analyzing two studies, one from 2001-2002 and another from 2012-2013, and data from 43,000 long-term heroin users.

In 2001-2002, there were similar rates of heroin use between whites and non-whites, but by 2013 there was a significant race gap, according to the study.

Martins called for expanding treatment programs, overdose prevention and medication-assisted treatment, and for a change in doctors’ prescribing practices for opioids.

“I think some level of regulation is needed,” she said. “At the same time people who truly need that medication should get it but with greater supervision.”

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Patrick Enright and Paul Simao)