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Addiction to prescription painkillers and heroin has grown so deadly that the Obama administration wants to spend more than $1 billion over the next two years fighting it. Nearly all of the money would go to making anti-addiction medications, including buprenorphine, more available. Yet in the midst of the worst epidemic of unintentional drug overdose in U.S. history — mortality rates are four to fives times as high as in the mid-1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — it can be harder to get drugs to treat an addiction than it is to get the drugs that feed it. (Vestal, 3/14)

An emotional Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday signed what he called the most comprehensive law in the nation to combat an opioid addiction scourge, including a seven-day limit on first-time prescriptions for opiate painkillers. The Republican governor struggled to maintain his composure while recalling families he had met — some standing behind him at the Statehouse ceremony — who had lost loved ones to a "deadly, merciless epidemic" and others who were desperately seeking help for a family member. (3/14)

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has signed into law a compromise bill that seeks to alleviate the state’s opioid crisis. The Republican governor signed the legislation Monday morning at the State House, surrounded by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and various health and public safety officials. The Democratic-led state House and Senate both unanimously passed the measure last week. (3/14)

STAT is asking a Kentucky court to make public sealed documents that could provide new information on how Purdue Pharma marketed its potent pain pill OxyContin — including what top executives knew about how addictive it was, and whether they downplayed the risks. (Armstrong, 3/15)