More damaging testimony is emerging at the federal opioid trial in West Virginia, including emails from executives at one of the drug distributors in the lawsuit mocking local people for consuming their firm’s additive prescription painkillers. The emails included parody songs denigrating Appalachians as “pillbillies” living in “OxyContinville” at a time when the opioid epidemic was ensnaring thousands of people in addiction and overdose deaths. The Big Three distributors shipped nearly 109 million pills to just one county in the state from 2006 to 2014, with one pharmacy in the state averaging 35,000 OxyContin doses a month. The companies are accused of failing to provide adequate legally required oversight of drug shipments. Meanwhile, for the first time in 50 years, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has approved new licenses for companies that grow medical marijuana for research. The move, after years of delay, allows researchers to study marijuana from different growers to see if different varieties can be effective in alleviating pain, fighting seizures, and combating both depression and PTSD—among the many conditions medical pot might be effective. The approvals are important as more states legalize medical cannabis and add conditions for which the drug can be prescribed. And finally, a new program in New Jersey is proving beneficial to parolees fighting drug addiction and at risk of opioid overdose. The program—called Swift, Certain and Fair—pairs parolees with a social worker and a peer recovery specialist, to ensure they receive services and support once they are out of prison, helping them to stay clean and sober during the difficult transition from incarceration.