Last year, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses. About two-thirds of the deaths were linked to fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, which can be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, heroin or prescription opioids.
With vastly powerful synthetic drugs like fentanyl driving record overdose deaths, the scourge of opioids awaits after the COVID-19 pandemic finally recedes, a shift that public health experts expect in the months ahead.
Local governments currently litigating, such as Indianapolis, were provided the ability to opt out of the state’s opioid plan. Those local governments have the opportunity to opt back in within 60 days of opting out, according to the attorney general’s office.
The national settlement is expected to be the biggest single settlement in the complicated universe of litigation over the opioid epidemic in the United States. It won’t end the cases, but it would change them.
A three-year educational and marketing effort in Indiana called “Know the Facts” aims to build interest through simple, understated messages on billboards, buses, broadcast commercials and social media.
The city is just six months from a tentative opening for the first piece of the justice campus project, the 37,000-square-foot Assessment and Intervention Center. Construction on other buildings in phase one is well underway, and the city has started planning for phases two and three.
Working with more than 50 community partners around the state, we’ve compiled trustworthy, relevant information about this crisis, providing an entryway into this topic that many are hesitant to discuss.
Indiana lawmakers have not seriously debated proposals such as allowing medical marijuana or removing the threat of jail time for possessing small amounts of the drug, even as recreational marijuana sales have won approval in Michigan and Illinois and medical use is allowed in Ohio.
Douglas Huntsinger, deputy director for drug prevention, treatment and enforcement, will take over. The state said Huntsinger has been overseeing operational aspects of the state’s response to the drug crisis since 2017.
The biggest driver of the cost over the four-year period is unrealized lifetime earnings of those who died from the drugs, followed by health care costs.
Capitol Village Healthcare, a 52-bed nursing home at 2926 N. Capitol Ave., closed earlier this year, and had received low ratings from U.S. News and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Prescriptions of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone are soaring, and experts say that could be a reason overdose deaths have stopped rising for the first time in nearly three decades.
The crisis has been years in the making, and the job of wrestling it to the ground has grown into a massive task. No one is yet predicting when the state will be able to declare victory.
Visits to emergency rooms in Indiana for drug overdoses are falling, and doctors are writing fewer prescriptions for opioid painkillers, Jim McClelland said Friday.
The Indianapolis medical-software firm recently raised $10 million in venture funding and is launching two major products in one month.
Overdose deaths in Indiana rose 18 percent last year compared with 2016 and 37 percent over 2015. A vast majority of the overdoses were caused by opioids.
As Marion County appears poised to launch a similar syringe-exchange program, public health officials point to a growing list of reports and studies they say proves such programs are a worthwhile investment.
The fact naloxone is a prescription drug creates a hurdle for addicts and their families. In addition, many pharmacies and local health departments don’t stock it, and not everyone can afford it.
The number of prescriptions for opioid painkillers filled in the United States fell dramatically last year, showing their biggest drop in 25 years.
About 80 percent of Indiana employers have been affected by prescription drug misuse and abuse, including opioid painkillers, in their workplaces, according to a survey by the National Safety Council.
