AMERICANS OVER 50 are using narcotic pain pills in surprisingly high numbers, and many are becoming addicted. While media attention has focused on younger people buying illegal opioids on the black market, dependence can also start with a legitimate prescription from a doctor: A well-meant treatment for knee surgery or chronic back troubles is often the path […]
April 26, 2016 – Dave and Mary Baker buried their son in Aitkin but they’re determined his story will live on to help others in the battle against opioid addiction. Heroin in a bottle.” That’s what Dave Baker calls the prescription pills sitting in medicine cabinets in homes across the county and throughout the state. […]
BEMIDJI, Minn. – Few things have been as heart-wrenching for obstetrics doctors and nurses at Sanford Bemidji Medical Center in recent years as helpless newborns hooked on the opioid drugs their mothers abused during or before pregnancy. Many of the infants recoil at a nurse’s touch, cry constantly, clench their muscles tightly, and tremble and sweat […]
Colleen Ronnei parallels her son Luke’s resilience to one of a dragon slayer. “It’s families like ours and it’s families like yours. Nobody is immune to this,” the Chanhassen mother said. Luke’s most powerful nemesis is one he kept quiet. Annual Twin Cities drug abuse trends report outlines sharp rise in overdoses “Most of Luke’s closest friends didn’t […]
Nine years later and John Gahagan still remembers the day his 17-year-old son Sean lost his fight to opioid addiction very clearly. “Oh my God, it was the worst day of my life,” John Gahagan told KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don. “I was at work. My wife found him in his bedroom … He was sitting […]