Tagged: drugs

A proposal to drug test people as a condition for receiving welfare is advancing in the Tennessee House.  The measure sponsored by Republican Representative Julia Hurley was approved on a voice vote in the House Finance Subcommittee Monday. The companion bill is awaiting a Senate floor vote.  The proposal differs from original legislation the state attorney general said was constitutionally suspect.

Prescription drug abuse is an ongoing problem in Kentucky’s mines but recent steps taken by the state legislature are helping get control of it. That’s what a member of the state mine safety review commission told the senate judiciary committee this week. Paducah attorney Duncan Pitchford says miners in the western Kentucky coalfields are also struggling with methamphetamine addictions.

Top Kentucky health leaders and lawmakers trying to end multistate prescription drug trafficking and abuse are meeting in Florida this week.  The National R-X Drug Abuse Summit runs from tomorrow until Thursday in Orlando.  The event is organized by the eastern Kentucky anti-drug group Operation UNITE.  It will feature remarks by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin and U.S. “Drug Czar” R.

Gov. Steve Beshear has joined a bipartisan group of state leaders to push for passage of a bill to curb prescription drug abuse. Lawmakers return to Frankfort next Thursday for the final day of the legislative session. Beshear said that gives lawmakers ample time to pass the bill. The legislation would put the attorney general's office in charge of the state's prescription monitoring system, known as KASPER, that can identify doctors who over prescribe painkillers.

Today on NPR: Critics say the NYPD's aggressive stop-and-frisk tactics amount to widespread racial profiling, but supporters counter that it's one reason the city's crime rate is as low as it is. Now, with the city's stop-and-frisk numbers reaching record highs, state lawmakers are pushing to rein the practice in.

Around the Commonwealth: