First-time abusers of prescription painkillers such as OxyContin most often get the drugs free from friends or family, while chronic abusers seek doctors or dealers to get their fix, a new analysis of two years of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found.
More than two-thirds of people who said they had gotten high on painkillers got the pills from family or friends the first time, the analysis found.
"We need to recognize and be aware of what's in our medicine cabinets," National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration will accept leftover prescription drugs Saturday at collection sites, staffed by police, across the USA.
Spokeswoman Barbara Carreno said the DEA will destroy the drugs at incinerators approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
--Donna Leinwand Leger
Witness blames Edwards for scheme
John Edwards' reaction when he learned in 2007 that his mistress might be pregnant was to call the woman a "crazy slut" and suggest other men could be the father, a former aide testified.
Andrew Young testified that Edwards, in the midst of a presidential campaign, hatched a plan to funnel money from rich friends to provide Rielle Hunter a monthly allowance. Young said Edwards later asked him to falsely claim paternity of the baby. Edwards' trial began this week on campaign-finance violations involving nearly $1million in secret payments provided by two donors as he sought the White House in 2008.
Guard charged in armored-car heist
An armored-car guard accused of killing his partner in Pittsburgh and making off with more than $2 million was arrested in Florida after nearly two months on the run.
Special Agent Michael Rodriguez, head of the Pittsburgh FBI office, said someone tipped Pittsburgh police on where to find Kenneth Konias.
Investigators recovered more than $1 million from a locker and the home where Konias was arrested in Pompano Beach, Fla., Rodriguez said.
Konias is accused of shooting Garda Cash Logistics guard Michael Haines before fleeing with cash from the truck they were guarding Feb. 28.
U.S. would not rush into cyberattack
The United States would use cyberweapons against an adversary's computer networks only after officials at the highest levels of government approved the plan, a top Defense official said.
Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, director of intelligence at the U.S. Cyber Command, told a cybersecurity conference in Arlington, Va., that cyberattacks can do significant damage to a country's infrastructure and are difficult to conduct without collateral damage and casualties. He played down the prospect that an enemy of the U.S. could disable the nation's electric power grid or shut down the Internet, saying those systems are designed to withstand severe cyberattacks.
Land swap to put cross back in desert
Veterans groups can restore a memorial cross to the Mojave Desert, ending a 10-year legal battle, the National Park Service said.
A federal judge approved a land swap allowing the park service to turn over a remote hilltop area known as Sunrise Rock to a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Barstow and the Veterans Home of California-Barstow. The park will give up the acre of land in exchange for 5 acres of donated property elsewhere in the 1.6-million-acre preserve in Southern California. The last cross was removed in 2010 because of a court order rejecting the religious symbol on public land.
Also
PORTLAND, Maine -- State regulators agreed to 20-year deals allowing three utilities to distribute electricity harnessed from tides, a milestone in the bid to turn ocean energy into power.
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