Partly because it’s much cheaper than pain pills, heroin is “quickly making inroads in Southern and Eastern Kentucky,” the head of an anti-drug organization told Laura Ungar of The Courier-Journal....
National overdose-death rates for heroin (red) and prescription opioids (blue) By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Soon after Kentucky cracked down on “pill mills” where prescription painkillers were easily available,...
Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan, far right, spokeat an enrollment ceremony to send the bill to President Obama. The Senate passed and sent to President Obama on Wednesday...
The growing use of heroin and the abuse of prescription painkillers in Kentucky also mean that the state “is being ravaged by the diseases that follow in their wake: hepatitis...
“Accidental overdoses aren’t the only deadly risk from using powerful prescription painkillers,” The Associated Press reports. “The drugs may also contribute to heart-related deaths and other fatalities, new research suggests.”...
The number of drug-overdose fatalities in Kentucky rose almost 15 percent in 2015, driven by a 247 percent jump in deaths involving fentanyl, a highly potent opioid that some traffickers...
The epidemic of opioid overdoses, 60 percent of which are blamed on abuse or misuse, “is changing prescribing habits, but there’s still a lack of other pain medications, access to...
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News In a state that once had more tobacco farms than any other, Kentuckians in all regions of the state support policies that discourage use...
Kentucky is the only truly Appalachian state to have put a brake on fatal drug overdoses, report Rich Lord and Adam Smeltz of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as part of a series...
Do you think it’s a good idea to save your leftover pain pills to have “just in case” you might need one, or that heroin is primarily an inner-city problem?...