Prescription drug abuse is the new scourge of rural America. It now leads to more deaths in the United States than heroin and cocaine combined, and rural residents are nearly twice as likely to overdose on pills than people in big cities, according to the Centers for Disease Control. While methamphetamine addiction has long been…

Parents already panicky about the amount of time their teenage children spend online may now have something new to worry about: All those hours spent Web surfing, chatting, gaming, texting and posting to Facebook could be a warning sign of substance abuse, according to a new study in the March issue of the Journal of…

Prescription drug use is on the rise while the average age of the addict is dropping. “More than 50 percent of law enforcement investigations are because of prescription drugs,” Flagler County Sheriff Don Fleming said. “Twenty-five hundred kids in Florida try drugs every day — 60 percent are under 15.” Circuit Judge Joseph Will, who…

After a slight downturn in 2009, Ohio logged a record high number of accidental drug overdose deaths in 2010, when 1,544 people died prematurely, according to figures released Thursday by the Ohio Department of Health. From 2001 to 2010, overdose deaths climbed almost threefold. In 2007, they surpassed traffic crashes as the leading cause of…

The arrest of four football players brought swift action from Coach Gary Patterson and the school, but what will be the lasting impact on a program that has been highly regarded? Linebacker Tanner Brock, defensive lineman D.J. Yendrey, offensive tackle Ty Horn and cornerback Devin Johnson were arrested for allegedly dealing drugs after what police…

UCLA expressed a level of remorse and disappointment on Wednesday after the unflattering portrayal of its men’s basketball program in Sports Illustrated. But on teleconferences, the chancellor, athletics director and coach Ben Howland appeared to tire of probing questions and were in no mood to dwell on the negative. After all, the Bruins are moving…

Random drug testing being the norm in school districts is a touchy subject among teachers. The mother of a Bangor, Northampton Co., teacher who died from a heroin overdose said district-mandated drug testing could have saved her daughter’s life. Officials from the Bangor Area School District did not get back to 69 News, but a…

A school in Santa Fe is taking a strong stance in its fight against drugs. Starting next fall, St. Michael’s Catholic School plans to begin randomly drug testing its students, and that has a lot of parents talking. “It doesn’t matter what school, what city, what town, you’re going to find drugs. No family’s going…

There have been so many artists in the music industry plagued by problems with drugs and alcohol over the years. Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson – the list goes on and on … and now, everyone’s talking about the death of Whitney Houston. Although the official toxicology reports have yet…