OxyContin

Fort Lauderdale Wants Your Pills

Bring out your pills! Leave no injectable behind! Think that two-year old bottle of codeine isn't safe to mix with Sprite? Ditch it! Fort Lauderdale is hosting a no-questions-asked medication take back on Jan. 27 at 301 N. Andrews Ave. from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The city and much Broward County has lon ... More >>

Rush Limbaugh Says Obama Won Women Voters Because He Treats Them Like Vaginas

Pill-poppin' conservative blowfish blowhard Rush Limbaugh, like all the other GOPers in the past few days, is seriously butthurt over Barack Obama's resounding reelection this past Tuesday. In rummaging through the Conservetard devastation handed to them (they couldn't win Ohio or Florida... nut-ja ... More >>

We Need a New Drug: New OxyContin Formula Prompts Users to Switch to Heroin

New OxyContin Formula Pushing Users to Shoot Heroin

In 2010, the formula for OxyContin, a slow-release form of the powerfully addictive painkiller oxycodone, was changed to make it harder to abuse. It became almost impossible to grind up and dissolve effectively, making it mostly useless to addicts who would snort, smoke, or inject the drug to get an ... More >>

Pain-Pill Manufacturer Testing Oxycodone on 6-Year-Olds

Drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma is now testing its proprietary formula for OxyContin on children as young as 6, according to the Daily, in what appears to be a bid to extend the life of a patent set to expire next year.OxyContin is a formulation of oxycodone, the opioid that for years was the scourg ... More >>

Schoolboy Q on June 21 at Grand Central

Scripps Scientists Get $3 Million to Develop Less Brutal Pain Drugs

​Researchers at the Jupiter campus of the Scripps Research Institute might have some new tricks for treating pain that aren't accompanied by the nasty side effects associated with drugs like OxyContin.The National Institute on Drug Abuse awarded a team of Scripps researchers more than $3 ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Resolution Now in Both Chambers of Florida Legislature

​​​Resolutions to let voters decide on an amendment to the Florida Constitution to legalize medical marijuana have now been proposed in both chambers of the Legislature.Miami Democratic Sen. Larcenia Bullard dropped Senate Joint Resolution 1028 in the hopper on Friday, becoming the Senate side ... More >>

New OxyContin Pills Are Cheaper on the Street, but Good Luck Getting Them Up Your Nose

Seattle Weekly​Florida residents probably know there are plenty of ways to buy prescription OxyContin over a counter. But for those bent on acquiring pills in the most shady way possible, they're still available from street dealers. Those street pills are getting cheaper -- thanks to a new fo ... More >>

Jason Villano: Pill Mill Crackdown's Unjust Victim

Dear Women of Florida: Trust Rick Scott on Abortion. He Knows Best

Sorry ladies, I don't trust you.​Dear Women of Florida,As your governor, I feel obliged to write/tweet/robo-call you individually to explain the new law I signed requiring you to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion.First, I must admit that I've never had an ultrasound myself. No, I've ... More >>

House "Pill Mill" Bill Blocks Major Funding for Database

​After Gov. Rick Scott reluctantly withdrew his opposition to a prescription drug tracking system, a House committee dropped the proposed repeal last week, and restored the database into its legislation aimed combating prescription drug abuse. By a vote of 116-1, the Florida House passed that bill ... More >>

Increasing Numbers of Newborns Are Born Addicted to Pain Pills

via Damon Winter/The New York TimesA nurse administers methodone to a newborn, 4 weeks old.​This week, the New York Times called attention to a largely overlooked demographic of pain pill addicts -- newborn babies. The Times reports that as pain pill abuse "ravages communities across the country," ... More >>

Revised 'Pill Mill' Bill Approved By House Committee

​So much for the governor's pill mill "strike force." Florida just may get a prescription drug-monitoring program after all.  Today, the House Appropriations Committee approved a revised bill, (HB 7095), that scraps Gov. Rick Scott's proposal to repeal the drug tracking system, which also rec ... More >>

UPDATED: BSO Sgt., Wife, Hit With Oxy Trafficking Charges

Associated Press Wild Art: Rick Scott's omnipresent security guards (in what one reader called "Blackwater-style" beige vests) couldn't protect him from the catcalls and boos hurled at him by the crowd at this parade in Tallahassee.UPDATED: The pill mill problem in Broward County may have ju ... More >>

The OxyContin Ice Cream Truck

Ice Cream of Doom.​Don't feel bad about Florida's reputation as the pill-pushing capitol of the world. We, at least, push our pills from clinics housed in nondescript gray buildings, none of which are likely to attract throngs of screaming children. Not so in New York City. There, they sell narcot ... More >>

Popular West Palm Beach Art Event Showtel on Hiatus During Search for New Venue

Photo by Eric BartonThe Oxy room at last year's Showtel.​Every spring for the past eight years, Hotel Biba in West Palm Beach would lend out a couple of dozen of its rooms for Showtel, one of South Florida's best art events. Over the course of a weekend, about 2,000 people would pop in and out of ... More >>

Young Broward County Pill Addicts With No Memory of AIDS Epidemic Now Shooting Up

​While Gov. Rick Scott seems like the biggest obstacle in front of the prescription drug problem that kills seven Floridians a day, a new trend has emerged among young addicts. Users in their 20s increasingly prefer to crush pills and inject their fix, according to a report from Jim Hall, director ... More >>

Florida's Pill Mill Problem So Bad That Oxy Maker Agrees to Pay to Have Pills Tracked

​The drug company that makes OxyContin seems more concerned about Florida's drug epidemic than the governor. First, the manufacturer began reformulating its pill to prevent snorting or shooting the drug. Now, the company, Purdue Pharma, has offered $1 million to help fund Florida's prescription dr ... More >>

Say Goodbye to Broward County and Hello to BroCo, Bro

Welcome to BroCo, bro.​What's in a name? For some people, a whole lotta nothing. Take, for example, musicians Marshall Mathers and Elgin Lumpkin. They weren't marketable with the name mom gave 'em, so they upgraded to Eminem and Ginuwine. Likewise, Broward County commissioners and the Sun-Sentinel ... More >>

Gov. Rick Scott Sure Seems Like He Wants Pill Mills to Stay Open

Rick Scott, back from his deposition days.​Since his inauguration in January, new Florida Gov. Rick Scott has looked a lot like an Oxycontin addict.Twice now, Scott has come out in opposition to tough rules that would crack down on the South Florida pill mills that dispense pain pills like Pez. Th ... More >>

Pain Clinic Lobby Criticizes Palm Beach Post

​The Florida Society of Pain Management Providers, the largest pain-clinic-supported lobbying organization in the state, has harshly criticized two recent articles in the Palm Beach Post, claiming the paper printed erroneous statistics about pain clinics in Palm Beach County, even after being noti ... More >>

Dave Aronberg, Pam Bondi's New Pick to Fight Pill Mills, Has His Work Cut Out for Him

Disarming pain clinics with a single smile.​Now that Rick Scott has nixed the state Office of Drug Control, which was instrumental in getting anti-pill-mill legislation passed, the duty to try to curb the illegal pill-mill industry falls on whoever will take it.Enter Pam Bondi, your new Republican ... More >>

Bruce Grant, Drug Czar to be Sacked by Rick Scott, is Concerned about Pill Mill Enforcement (Updated)

​Bruce D. Grant is the director of the governor's Office of Drug Control, and he found out by e-mail last month that Rick Scott's transition team had decided to eliminate his four-person office to save half a million dollars a year. Meanwhile, the state is still struggling to finalize the Prescrip ... More >>

The Dirty Dozen: 2010's Most Despicable People

A Hallucinogen Called Ibogaine Has Helped Addicts Kick Heroin, Meth, and Everything in Between. Is it the Trip That Does the Trick?

Fort Lauderdale "Pill Alley" Gets a Visit From Knoxville TV Station

The Knoxville station reports from "pill alley."​There's a stretch of Andrews Avenue near Commercial Boulevard that Fort Lauderdale tourism officials probably would rather out-of-towners skip. It's exactly where a Knoxville TV station visited recently for a report this week titled "Aboard the Oxyc ... More >>

"The Town" Puts Ben Affleck in His Bank Robber Role

Richard Lippner Had Two Beautiful Young Women Die in His Apartment Four Months Apart

Courtney Love Gets the Hole Band Back Together (Sorta)

Kentucky Police Struggle to Halt Pipeline of Pain Pills From South Florida

​Florida has given the rest of America so much over the years: delicious orange juice, great football players, cop dramas, a preposterous quantity of Disney paraphernalia, and more recently, the devastating social destruction of prescription pill addiction. Wayne Bird, chief of police in Williamsb ... More >>

New Times' Special Super Bowl Guide to Sex, Drugs, Gambling, and Living Large in South Florida

Vice Guide: Procuring Party Pills

Everything that makes South Florida the Vice capital of the country--the drugs, the sex, the gambling--is amplified during the week of the Super Bowl. But nothing ruins the perfect party week like someone dying or going to jail. So this week we'll be presenting The Juice Vice Guide to South Florida. ... More >>

Pillbillies of Broward County Go Hollywood

After a short ad, that's the trailer for "The Oxycontin Express," the first episode of this season's Vanguard. That's correspondent Mariana van Zeller boldly reporting from within Broward County, pain pill capital of the world. Aren't we just beaming with pride?The show airs on Current TV, the diy ... More >>

MTV Reality Star Was Busted in West Palm by Undercover Cop Prostitute

Sadly, no, it was not Whitney (left), nor her two co-stars but a member of The City supporting cast known as "Nevan," the understanding cousin of Whitney Olivia (seen above, mugging on the right). To the West Palm Beach police department he's James Nevan Donahue. In February 2007 West Palm officers ... More >>

Morning Juice: Gay Pro Bowl Coming to Florida, Riviera Beach Outs Itself, West Palm Employees Like the Porn

Pro Bowl Comes to South Florida, Possibly Kindling Gay AffairSouth Florida will host the NFL's Pro Bowl in 2010 and may also become home of the Gay Games. Somehow, inexplicably, these two stories haven't been linked by other media outlets. But it's clear to see that the Pro Bowl could stand as the c ... More >>

Bitter Pill

Families say Hollywood doc is out of control

Letters for November 1-7, 2007

Velvet Revolver Seeks Libertad

Slash touts his new band as others celebrate the old one

Powerfall

For David Lee Edwards, winning the lottery was a wild rocket ride

Prodigy

Return of the Mac (Koch)

Rush's Airport Boner

Don't leave Santo Domingo without one.

Rush's Airport Boner

Don't leave Santo Domingo without one.

Mang's Best Friend

After 22 years, Ween is still keepin' it brown.

Cop, Judge, and Jury

When Hollywood lawman Pete Salvo allegedly covered up a crime, Internal Affairs looked the other way

Words of Wu-dom

Haven't had enough Wu-Tang merchandise? Now there's a book.

Hellooo! It's time!

Got a fallin' feeling?

A Christmas Confession

Columnist repents, vows to stop killing Christian fundamentalists

'Chunk Style

Superchunk chases the clouds away, and a strange new "Seasons in the Sun"

Dead Drugged

After OxyContin killed Stevie Steiner, his half brother lied to the cops. Was it an honest mistake?