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Department of Veterans Affairs officials are trying to put solutions in place to limit narcotic overprescribing practices in VA hospitals, they said Thursday, but lapses still happen. At a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called the VA system of prescribing narcotics "abysmally inaccurate" and prodded VA officials on how they would fix programs used to monitor such prescriptions. (Ferguson, 3/26)

Nearly 100,000 veterans currently are receiving prescriptions for both tranquilizers and narcotic painkillers from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, a potentially deadly combination that is explicitly discouraged by agency guidelines. (Glantz, 3/26)

House Energy and Commerce members on Thursday endorsed throwing more resources toward monitoring doctors who overprescribe prescription painkillers while addiction experts urged the lawmakers to also modernize laws that help addicts come clean. The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing into opioid abuse the same day lawmakers led by Edward Whitfield, R-Ky., introduced legislation to renew grants for states to implement prescription drug monitoring programs. (Zanona, 3/26)