OxyContin

Sometimes You Just Say "Fuck It," Throw A Piano In the Back of A Truck, and Play Your Way Down To Panama

Dotan Negrin is a guy who plays piano out on the streets for money, but to say he's just another street performer is like saying Felix Baumgartner -- you know, that guy that jumped from the stratosphere back down to Earth last October -- is just another skydiver.

M.D.'s Are the New Pain-Pill Crime Wave

Dr. Dealer

Long Island Dr. Feel-Good Charged In Oxycodone Overdose Deaths Of Two Patients

A Long Island physician has been charged in the deaths of two patients who overdosed on Oxycodone last year, federal prosecutors announced this morning.Additionally, the doctor's former office assistant has been hit with charges alleging that he was involved in the unlawful distribution of the dange ... More >>

Hammer Officially Dropped On Prescription Drug Traffickers; Sweep Nets Nearly 100 Arrests -- Including Two Doctors

Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies dropped the hammer on the illegal prescription drug trafficking biz this morning in a sweep that netted nearly 100 arrests, including two doctors and one nurse practitioner.The most arrests occurred on Staten Island, where law enforcement officials s ... More >>

Cuomo's Plan To Decriminalize "Public View" Marijuana Doesn't Make Him A Hero -- It Makes Him Bipolar

Yesterday, law enforcement officials and state lawmakers got in line to pucker up to the rump of Governor Andrew Cuomo because of his plan to decriminalize "public view" marijuana possession. Cuomo's move is being heralded as a civil rights victory for young Hispanic and African-American New Yorkers ... More >>

Report: Long Islanders Love Drugs

If you live on Long Island, there's a pretty good chance that you absolutely love drugs -- and we're not talking about weed, we're talking about real drugs like heroin, Oxycontin, and other opiates.In response to last year's "Father's Day Pharmacy Massacre" -- during which a pill junky murdered four ... More >>

Weed Wackiness: Here Are Common Drugs More Dangerous Than Marijuana

As the debate over medical marijuana continues in New York and the rest of the U.S., there's bound to be a lot of conflicting information out there. Opponents of medical marijuana tend to argue that it is dangerous and has no therapeutic qualities. We're not medical experts, so we're not going to d ... More >>

New York City Really Has a Thing for Pain Pills

Not too long after data came out questioning whether America might be addicted to painkillers, additional details have been released about New York City's pill popping. From 2008 to 2010, prescriptions for opioid analgesics surged 22 percent, according to The Associated Press (via CBS). What's s ... More >>

Is America Addicted to Painkillers?

And now for some sad-making stats as we near the end of the week. Recent Associated Press reports suggest that America is really drugged up on prescription opioids -- and New York is certainly no exception. Receipts for two most popular painkiller scripts -- oxycodone and hydrocodone -- boomed fr ... More >>

Sen. Chuck Schumer Pushes For Crackdown On Drugged Driving

In New York City, 357 drivers were arrested in 2011 for being under the influence of drugs -- up from 81 ten years prior. That's more than a 300 percent increase. That's why Sen. Chuck Schumer is making a funding push to crackdown on "drugged driving" through new on-site technologies that would id ... More >>

Astoria Has a New Restaurant Row; New Yorkers Eating Double the Salt

​A food fight has broken out between Modern Indian chefs in London and traditional Indian chefs in Mumbai and New Delhi, who say they are staying true to the spiciness of Indian food. [Wall Street Journal] Pachanga Patterson is the latest addition to the restaurant row in Astoria, which inclu ... More >>

1 in 8 New Yorkers is on Oxy

​If you were wondering why 13% of the commuters on your subway car this morning were drooling and looking into space, the Wall Street Journal may have a clue: prescriptions for oxycodone, the generic name of the powerful pain pill OxyContin, have doubled in New York City between 2007 and 2010. ... More >>

America's Workplace: Slightly Less Coked Up, Still Stressin'

​According to recently released stats, the number of Americans doing coke at work has taken a downward turn, falling nearly 30 percent from the apparently high-flying recession years of 2008 and 2009 to about ".29% of the population," reports Fortune. However, twice as many of us are now using ... More >>

Rightbloggers Comfort the Real Victims of the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting: Themselves

After Saturday's shootings in Arizona -- which left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords badly wounded and six people dead -- rightbloggers were swift to condemn... any possible criticism of themselves. You can understand their defensiveness. Back during the 2010 campaign, Sarah Palin had en ... More >>

In The Next Three Days, Paul Haggis Will Show No Improvement

Ibogaine: Can it Cure Addiction Without the Hallucinogenic Trip?

The substance has helped addicts kick heroin, meth, and everything in between. Is it the trip that does the trick?

Your CMJ 2010 Panels, Cynically Summarized: Day 2 (Wednesday)

​It continues. On the second day everyone wakes up a little late, a little hungover, a little cranky at having failed to get into Salem. Shake it off, though, at one of this afternoon's informative industry panels, which we've taken the liberty of crassly summarizing below.

Ben Affleck, Caught Between Redemption, Action, and Boston in The Town

Download A Free El-P Camu Tao EP, Forever Frozen In Television Time

​King of Hearts, the long-awaited posthumous solo debut from Def Jux rapper-producer Camu Tao (who died of cancer in 2008), is finally coming out August 17. To whet your appetite, the label's offering a free download of a 2005 EP called Forever Frozen in Television Time, credited to Central Se ... More >>

Elton John Whored At Rush Limbaugh's Wedding

​Anti-gay hatemonger Rush Limbaugh just married a woman who's 26 years younger in Palm Springs---in fact, she's 26 years younger everywhere--but that's not the vomity part. The vomity part is that lord queen Elton John sang at the wedding! Our out gay pal--who does so much for our cause when ... More >>

Welcome Back, Courtney Love

The return of 'Hole' whether you like it or not, you little suck shits

The iPhone 4.0 Presentation: A Photo Essay, With Perspective

​Okay, honestly, owning an iPhone, working as a blogger, and being a human being and everything, I know I'm supposed to really, really care about whatever Steve Jobs is talking about right now. So I do! Here are pictures of Steve Jobs saying things. And! We! Are! Doing! It! Live! So! Keep! Ref ... More >>

What Else Can the RNC Spend $1,946 on Besides Strip Clubs?

​Politics: often tenuous. Money management in a turbulent economy: sometimes difficult! Money management in a turbulent economy, for a political organization representing a platform that revolves heavily around quote-unquote family values? A tough gig! And sometimes, mistakes -- like spending ... More >>

Barrett: Larry Kudlow Sniffs Around For More Political Power

​On the heels of Scott Brown's big win, Larry Kudlow, the CNBC rudderless anchor, is apparently considering a senate run against New York's Chuck Schumer, pushed by GOP and Tea Party allies and admirers. It would make Schumer the only incumbent known to be facing two reformed cokeheads in th ... More >>

Cheek, in Review: 7 Days of Runnin' Scared

​Kennedy Airport. Twitpic via sawyerlex. War on Christmas season swung into full effect. In a holiday spirit, the Staten Island D.A. tried shame on shoplifters. A GOP Congressman moved to read a pro-Christmas resolution into the House record. Andrea Peyser denounced the godless Bloomingdales ... More >>

Drug Dealer Yusef Shabazz Sent Sickle-Cell Patients to Docs to Get OxyContin; Nabbed by FBI, He Winds Up in Prison

The leader of a drug ring who recruited people suffering from sickle-cell anemia to obtain thousands of false prescriptions for OxyContin was sentenced in federal court to ten years in prison late Tuesday afternoon.

The Rise and Fall of Internet Sports Bookie and Poker Pro James Giordano

From Bluff magazine to court, James Giordano was wired for success until Queens prosecutors captured him in their web

Freaks Of The Industry IV: Friday's CMJ Panels, Needlessly Derided

This is your last day to receive valuable music-industry advice at one of CMJ's myriad afternoon panels. Here, we'll help you pick one.

That's Not Funny! Obama's Jokes Spur Hilarious Rightblogger Comedy Clinic

As we have seen, repeatedly, rightbloggers don't need much to set them off. This week, for example, they got a lot of mileage out of Obama asking for dijon mustard on his hamburger. When rightwing talking heads made a big deal of the President's condiment choice, lefties made mock of them. Righ ... More >>

"The City" Toff, Golden Globes Get Ahead of Themselves

No, no, no -- you're supposed to get arrested for soliciting after you're famous, and announce the winners during the award ceremony. The Smoking Gun reveals that James Nevan Donahue, who plays a friend or something of "social" Olivia in the MTV car-wreck "The City," was arrested in 2007 for approa ... More >>

Same Story, Different Day: Mary-Kate Olsen and the Ongoing Heath Ledger Investigation, Angelina Jolie's Twins and Snooks's Return

TABLOIDED: Why is Lindsay Lohan on Today's Front Page?

People I Hate...

M.E.: Heath Ledger Accidently OD'd on Painkillers and Anxiety Meds

Dean Johnson’s E-Mails Shed New Light on His Strange Death

New York nightlife icon was the second person to die in the same D.C. apartment in four days

(Doris) Duking it out with Rush Limbaugh!

A Gay Senate Candidate Revealed!

Double-wide-eyed by an opera trailer at Carnegie Hall and by a Senate race out North Carolina way

'No Skeletons in My Closet!'

Oh yeah? How Michael Mukasey and Bernie Kerik are haunting Rudy's run.

Devils We Know

Serge Gainsbourg, Lara Croft, blue-collar rapper, Saharan exile—meet Cops

An OD Revival Story

What to do if your friend turns blue? Try Narcan.

Harrumph Roast

The Butcher Girl

White trash + lesbian + prostitute + serial killer = Oscar?

Dress You Up

The DEA's War on Pain Doctors

Go E-Mail the Doctor

Online Pharmacies Offer Relief to the Uninsured, Vulnerable, and Desperate

Vice Bust

Kicking the Jackass of the Magazine World