Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the number of opiate prescriptions by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has skyrocketed. In some cases, the VA has prescribed drugs to known addicts.
Opiates
Prescriptions of four potent opiates to veterans more than tripled in the decade after 9/11, contributing to drug abuse, addiction and suicide. The VA is trying to combat the problem, with uneven results.
Posted inOpiates, Returning Home to Battle
Pilot 1: The VA’s deadly pain pill habit
An exclusive story about the volume and impact stemming from the VA’s overprescription of opiates to addicted veterans; the attorney behind many of the worst for-profit charities; bodycams for cops; and how one reporter helped one man prove his brother had been abused at a state mental facility.
Posted inOpiates, Returning Home to Battle
VA’s opiate overload feeds veterans’ addictions, overdose deaths
The Department of Veterans Affairs has supplied Tim Fazio with nearly 4,000 oxycodone pills since he returned home after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008. Fazio says he was never in acute physical pain but used the pills to blot out feelings of guilt for surviving when many of his friends did not.Adithya Sambamurthy/The […]
