The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "drug dependency" ...
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Uncounted Casualties
A three-day series that analyzed causes of death for 266 Texas veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The six-month investigation uncovered previously unknown information, pulling data from a variety of federal, state and local sources. The series, which also depended on extensive interviews with family members and fellow service members, revealed the startling number of Texas veterans dying of prescription drug overdoses, suicides and motor vehicle crashes. The newspaper's analysis was hailed by epidemiologists and former Department of Veterans Affairs researchers as an important step in understanding veteran mortality, and led to calls for better government tracking of how veterans are dying.
Tags: Veterans; Iraq; Afghanistan; prescription drug overdoses; suicides; vehicle crashes
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Dirty Money
Some law enforcement agencies have become addicted to seizing drug money. This story found:</p> <p>*Police agencies are seizing bulk cash from drivers and alleging it's drug money without finding any drugs, or, in many cases, without ever filing criminal money laundering charges.</p> <p>* Underfunded, usually rural police and prosecutor's offices have become dependent on seizing suspected drug money to carry out the basic functions of their offices, a state of affairs specifically discouraged by federal asset forfeiture laws.</P> <p>* In the extreme, some corrupt police forces are setting up "forfeiture traps," reminiscent of small-town speed traps, to catch suspected drug couriers and take their currency, a practice some attorneys call "highway robbery"</p> <p>* Some sheriff's departments have become more interested in confiscating cash than drugs, i.d. working southbound lanes into Mexico -- "our piggybank," one South Texas sheriff told me -- where they're more likely to catch money couriers. The reporters also found that these departments are not interested in investigating the couriers as a way to disrupt cartel activities -- all they're interested in is seizing the cash.</p> <p>* With little oversight built into state or federal asset forfeiture laws, some prosecutors' office are misspending their seized drug funds on things like margarita machines for the annual picnic and soccer uniforms for the police soccer team.</p> <p>* More and more law enforcement agencies are taking advantage of the "piggy banks" on their highways. According to the US Justice Department, in the past four years seized assets tripled from $567 million to $1.6 billion.</p>
Tags: Drug enforcement; seizure of money; US Justice Department; radio; forfeiture traps
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The Battle Within
After six years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, an all-volunteer Army is sending the same soldiers back again and again, sometimes despite medical findings that they are unfit for battle. Thousands are depending on prescription drugs, including antidepressants, to get through repeated trips to war, and some have died while taking multiple combination of drugs to treat combat stress and other war-related injuries. Suicides in Iraq and Afghanistan tripled from 2004 to 2007, and some of those who killed themselves were sent back to war with antidepressants.
Tags: military; combat fatigue; prescription drugs; suicides; drug addictions
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Sleeping Pills: Are They Worth the Rosk?
As manufacturers have increased their spending on advertisement for sleeping pills, the rate of sleep drug prescriptions rose 32 percent between 2001 and 2005. But better and safer remedies might be available, and Consumer Reports asks if consumers might be turning to the pills too early.
Tags: Sleeping pills; Lunesta; drug dependency
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Expensive Pill to Swallow
"Retail prices of widely used generic drugs are marked up hundreds of per cent over the wholesale cost to pharmacies. Also, the price of these drugs can vary by hundreds of dollars a year to users depending on where they shop."
Tags: Prescription; over the counter; drugs; pharmacy;
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Drug Dependency: U.S. Has developed An Expensive Habit: Now, How to Pay for It?
The Journal reports that "scores of pricey new pills improve quality of life, but bust health budgets ... A revolution in pharmaceutical research, a billion-dollar marketing blitz and Americans' voracious appetite for Viagra, Claritin and a host of other pricey pills are driving drug spending to record-high levels. And nobody, it seems, knows what to do about it."
Tags: marketing; prescription drugs; elderly; health care; medicine; technology
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Broken Lives
The Bee profiles "average" children in foster care, and depicts their plight. The series explores "four very personal stories from the private world of dependency court, where children are brought ... for protection from their own parents." The reporter points to the failures of the overburdened foster care system in California, and especially in Sacramento County, where 1 in 56 children is in foster care.
Tags: FOIA; public records; freedom of information; Child Protective Services; social workers; neglect; drugs; abuse; custody; juvenile justice; attorneys; courts; judges; adoption; group homes
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Attorneys gone worng
A Columbus Monthly investigation sheds light on a respected Columbus law professor's misconduct, which "may be his last, most memorable act as an attorney." The story details how Louis Bernard LaCour, a church leader and a prominent member of the black community, has collected fees from local residents for five years after their case against the Georgia-Pacific had been dismissed. The report looks at several other cases in Ohio, involving theft of client funds or client neglect, and explains the disciplinary process against such types of misconduct. According to some estimates cited in the analysis, 20 percent of all attroneys and judges suffer from alcoholism and other drug dependencies.
Tags: judges; courts; bar associations; disbarment; substance abuse; Ohio Layers Assistance Program; law
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Medi-Crack
Fox News/Fox Files reports "an undercover investigation of a health-care system scam fueling a drug epidemic. On the streets of LA.... Many people with Medi Cal and/or Medicare cards were recruited and paid to go to the doctor. In many instances these people took the money and bought drugs, in numerous cases crack, which provided the "entrepreneurs" behind this scam, steady, dependent volunteers for their illegal enterprise. The doctors would use the Medicare / Medi Cal cards to bill California State and/or Federal government for services rendered. ..."
Tags: TAPE TRANSCRIPT insurance fraud ethics Dr. Jay Borstein Medicare fraud
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High Society
The 10-part special report examines America's dependence on chemicals -- legal and illegal -- the history of drug use and prohibition, DARE, drug testing, etc.
Tags: DARE; drug testing; marijuana; methamphetamine