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On the front lines of America's fight against a drug-abuse epidemic, there have been emotional, sometimes contradictory reactions to news that investigators are looking into whether Prince died of an overdose. Those engaged in the fight say a celebrity's death can help raise awareness of the problems yet also overshadow the other victims dying by the hundreds every week. Others suggest the attention to celebrity deaths is transitory and has limited impact. (5/3)

Purdue Pharma LP, the maker of the prescription pain killer OxyContin, filed its opposition Monday to an effort by STAT to unseal documents related to how the company marketed its powerful opioid medication. The filing in Pike Circuit Court, Kentucky, argues that STAT has no constitutional or common law right to unseal the records, which include a deposition of Dr. Richard Sackler, a Purdue board member and former company president who is a member of the family that controls the closely held company. (Armstrong, 5/3)

The fight against the growing abuse of prescription painkillers and heroin is not robust enough at any level -- not federal and state governments’ efforts or those of doctors and users themselves, according to most Americans in a new poll out Tuesday. Lack of access to care for those with substance abuse issues is a major problem, said 58 percent of those surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the Foundation.) The poll found that Americans had somewhat different views of heroin and prescription drug abuse. (Gillespie, 5/3)

In a dramatic sign of the scope of the opioid crisis, a new survey on health shows that 44 percent of Americans personally know someone who has been addicted to prescription painkillers. About a quarter of those people say the person they know is an acquaintance, 21 percent say it’s a “close friend,” 20 percent say it’s a family member and two percent say they themselves are addicts. (Pianin, 5/3)

Some people addicted to oxycodone and other opioids are now turning to widely available diarrhea medications to manage their withdrawal symptoms or get high. The results can be dangerous to the heart — and sometimes fatal — warn toxicologists in a study recently published online in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. The researchers describe two case studies where people who were addicted to opioids tried to ease their withdrawal symptoms by taking many times the recommended dose of loperamide, a drug commonly used treat diarrhea. Both patients died. (Kodjak, 5/3)

William Logan Kennedy, a chronic drug abuser who cycled in and out of Miami jails, died last year slumped over his bed in an Overtown home. Next to him: a syringe and a bag of what was suspected to be heroin. It wasn’t. Instead, toxicologists determined this year, the 49-year-old handyman succumbed to a more dangerous and potent painkiller called fentantyl — a synthetic narcotic often peddled to unknowing users as heroin. (Ovalle and Weaver, 5/3)