TULSA, Okla. - The teenager had pink cheeks from the cold and a matter-of-fact tone as she explained why she had started using methamphetamine after becoming homeless last year.

"Having nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat - that's where meth comes into play," said the girl, 17, who asked to be identified by her nickname, Rose. "Those things aren't a problem if you're using."

She stopped two months ago, she said, after smoking so much meth over a 24-hour period that she hallucinated and nearly jumped off a bridge. Deaths associated with meth use are climbing here in Oklahoma and in many other states, an alarming trend for a nation battered by the opioid epidemic, and one that public health officials are struggling to fully explain.

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The legalization of marijuana as a medicine in 33 states, 11 of which allow its use as a recreational drug, has made weed a dynamic American industry, among the economy's fastest-growing sources of new jobs. California alone, with $3.1 billion in projected marijuana sales for this year, has a legal market as large as that of any country on the planet.

Entrepreneurs grumble nonetheless. Not since Ronald Reagan ran for president have American newspapers been so full of anecdotes about heroic jobs-creating businessmen stymied by regulation.

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Medical pot sellers in the north suburbs are lauding a new Illinois law that will eventually allow patients who might be prescribed an opioid-based painkiller to qualify for medical marijuana as an alternative.

The Opioid Alternative Pilot Program has the potential to expand marijuana access to patients who have been, or could be prescribed medications such as Oxycontin, Percocet or Vicodin, even if they don't have one of the medical conditions the state otherwise requires for eligibility. Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the law on Aug. 28.

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Jessica King's daughter was in the intensive care unit. The newborn was twitching, and doctors were monitoring her for symptoms such as vomiting and sweating.

King, 35, felt devastated to see her daughter this way. She was also gutted by guilt that her actions had put her there.

"I just remember thinking, 'I'm either going to let this consume me, the guilt and the shame, or I'm going to move on, and I'm going to keep trying to do the next right thing,'" said King, who battles with opioid addiction, which can include heroin, fentanyl and prescription pain relievers like oxycodone.

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Researchers at the University of Minnesota are getting closer to clinical trials of a vaccine for opioid addiction.

Three studies published in the past six months show incremental success, including one in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics that demonstrated that a vaccine could prevent oxycodone and heroin opioid molecules from reaching the brain.

"We are getting closer," said Marco Pravetoni, the lead researcher who has been studying a vaccine to treat addiction for 10 years.

A vaccine to confront addiction might sound unusual, but it would work like any vaccine by stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies. Instead of targeting influenza or poliovirus, the antibodies would be coaxed to bind to opioid molecules and prevent them from crossing the bloodstream barrier to the brain.

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"By the time I was 17, 18," Nelson Abbott said, "I graduated to heroin."

He tried to stop many times, both by going cold-turkey and tapering off the drugs, but he hated the withdrawal pains and he wasn't really ready to quit. Therapy didn't work out, either. But then his best friend overdosed and died. When Abbott's parents checked him into the Caron Treatment Center in Berks County, he didn't fight.

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After battling Lyme disease and other ailments for nearly 20 years, Bridgitte Pascale tried "almost everything" to alleviate her pain without relying on opioids.

Though doctors prescribed Percocet and muscle relaxers, she turned to acupuncture and later medical marijuana, which she says are the "only things that help" with the chronic aches and pains she manages daily.

Such alternative treatments are emerging as safe havens for some patients concerned about the dangers of painkillers. But while many swear by the benefit, health insurance generally doesn't cover them.

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Gov. Murphy greatly expanded New Jersey's medical marijuana program Tuesday, opening the door to tens of thousands of new patients and allowing the five dispensaries spread across the state to add satellite retail centers and cultivation facilities.

The governor added to the list of ailments that qualify for a cannabis prescription. He also cleared the way for any doctor in the state to prescribe cannabis, ending a system in which only those physicians who registered -- and thus, joined a publicly available list of providers - -- could do so. He said some doctors had been reluctant to participate in the program because they viewed joining the list as a stigma.

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While opioids hold center stage in the nation's drug war, methamphetamine is making a destructive comeback. Though meth has largely fallen off the public's radar, seizures and arrests are up, and more people are dying from the drug. Its evolution is a reminder of the durability of the illegal drug supply, the impermanence of any single enforcement tactic and the need for a comprehensive approach to fighting and treating addiction.

Potent, addictive and deadly, meth bears many of the pernicious traits of opioids. It became popular in the early 2000s, easily produced in small batches using the decongestant in over-the-counter cold medicine. In rural parts of Tampa Bay, especially eastern Hillsborough and Pasco counties and throughout Polk County, exploding "meth labs" routinely drew law enforcement's attention. Congress responded in 2005 with a law putting pseudoephedrine behind the counter, limiting the amount individuals could purchase and creating a tracking system pharmacies were required to use. Meth became much harder to make and faded from notice, overtaken by a new drug of choice: opioids.

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Historically opioid medications were used cautiously by physicians for selected patients to reduce pain associated with acute injury or illness, and for those suffering from life-threatening diseases such as cancer.

This caution was based upon recognition that improper use of opioids could result in patient harm. However, in 1996, the American Pain Society, supported by opioid pharmaceutical manufacturers, promoted acknowledgment and expanded treatment of pain as the 'fifth vital sign" by physicians in hospitals. In 2001, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations introduced new pain standards recognizing the under-assessment and treatment of pain, which then expanded the use of opioids. In the two decades that followed opioid use and abuse has exploded, with nearly 80 percent of the world's opioid medications now being consumed in the U.S.

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Curtis McGowan wrestled with his opioid addiction for years, but his suspected overdose while in prison raises serious questions

On one of his many trips home from jail, Curtis McGowan beamed with pride and clutched a Dr. Seuss book.

"Mom," said the six-foot, 300-pound foundry worker, handing Michele McPherson a copy of Green Eggs and Ham, "this is the first book I ever read."

To mother and son, it was a moment filled with significance. He'd struggled with illiteracy his whole life, just like he'd struggled with drug use and mental-health problems. If he could learn to read, perhaps sobriety and serenity were not far off.

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The life-saving drug may actually increase opioid abuse. Here's why

My friendly local pharmacy has started selling naloxone kits to the general public. They think everyone should have one. The idea is that you never know when you're going to have someone overdose in your home.

As the opioid crisis spreads like a curse across North America, naloxone - a lifesaving drug that neutralizes the effects of an opioid overdose - is not confined to first responders anymore. Schools in Toronto are stocking up in it. Librarians across the United States have been trained to administer it to overdosing visitors. Everywhere, the message is: make sure you have some on hand, just in case.

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For years, doctors turned to opioid painkillers as a first-line treatment for chronic back pain and aches in the joints. Even as the dangers of addiction and overdoses became more clear, the drugs' pain-relieving benefits were still thought to justify their risks.

Now researchers have hard data that challenges this view.

In the first randomized clinical trial to make a head-to-head comparison between opioids and other kinds of pain medications, patients who took opioids fared no better over the long term than patients who used safer alternatives.

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SARASOTA - When the Drug Enforcement Administration was formed in 1973, roughly 2,000 Americans were dying from overdoses each week, largely from heroin injections. In 2016 alone, thanks to a deregulated pharmaceutical industry, fatal overdoses -- 80 percent opioid related - -- claimed 63,000 lives.

Or, as Peter Bensinger pointed out Thursday morning, opium-derived drugs have exacted a higher death toll in a single year than nearly two decades of fighting in the Vietnam War.

Appointed by President Ford in 1976 to become the nation's second DEA director, Bensinger detailed the history of America's relationship with the poppy to a Sarasota Institute of Lifetime Learning crowd gathered at First United Methodist Church. As the leading cause of death for U.S. residents under 50, the toll from opioids and its synthetic counterparts today would've been unimaginable to Bensinger when he was the nation's top drug cop.

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People who were addicted to opioids and those who lost loved ones to opioid overdoses offered emotional testimony Monday urging state officials to approve medical marijuana as an alternative painkiller that could help halt Connecticut's deadly opioid epidemic.

"My passion and drive to achieve this is fueled by my personal experience battling pharmaceutical drug addiction solely with the use of cannabis," Cody Roberts of Seymour told the state Board of Physicians, which is charged with approving conditions for the state's medical marijuana program. Roberts testified he's lost eight friends in the past year to opioid overdoses, and has been addicted himself.

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Following the death of her son Conner in 2013, Yvonne Clark has been sharing her story with students and parents across the region.

In presentations to young people ranging from Grade 6 to Grade 12, Clark talks about her family's experience, about the dangers of fentanyl, and about the growing number of Albertans who have died of opioid overdoses.

What she hopes to include soon as part of that presentation is a series of images that will put a face to the fentanyl statistics. Clark is appealing to other Albertans who have lost a loved one to an opioid overdose to send her a photo of the victim, with the aim of educating young people across the province about the crisis.

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Public health is urging anyone who uses drugs to get a free naloxone kit.

The call comes after Owen Sound police announced Jan. 26 that the highly potent opioid carfentanil was confirmed in a pair of investigations in the city.

"All drugs are dangerous and we don't know oftentimes what is in other drugs. So you could be getting what you think is one drug when, in fact, there could be something else in it," public health nurse Lindsay Cook said in an interview.

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In what could be a precedent-setting decision, a New Jersey administrative law judge has ordered an insurance company to pay for medical marijuana for an injured worker who suffers from lingering neuropathic pain in his left hand after an accident while using a power saw at an 84 Lumber outlet in 2008.

Judge Ingrid L. French took testimony from the worker, a 39-year-old Egg Harbor Township man, and a Cherry Hill psychiatrist/neurologist who said the marijuana treatment was appropriate because it would allow the patient to reduce his prescription opiate use and lower the risk of serious side effects.

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Decades after Canada abandoned the field, the B.C. Centre on Substance Use is investigating the benefits of drugs like MDMA and psilocybin

In 2011, Gerald Thomas was invited to an Indigenous community in a remote area of British Columbia. Working for the Centre for Addictions Research of B.C., he was one of a small team of scientists who observed 12 people take ayahuasca, an Amazonian mixture that induces vivid visual and auditory hallucinations as well as deep emotional and intellectual reflection.

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Public health is urging anyone who uses drugs to get a free naloxone kit.

The call comes after Owen Sound police announced Friday that the highly potent opioid carfentanil was confirmed in a pair of investigations in the city.

"All drugs are dangerous and we don't know oftentimes what is in other drugs. So you could be getting what you think is one drug when, in fact, there could be something else in it," public health nurse Lindsay Cook said Monday in an interview.

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