opioid crisis News

Officials Team Up to Fight Opioid Crisis in Vermont Community

Burlington, Vt., officials and community partners are teaming up to combat a spike in opioid-related deaths. Vermont saw a 38 percent increase in opioid-related deaths from 2015 to 2016. Mayor Miro Weinberger joined the city’s police chief and other officials …

Mississippi Officials Worry About Future Opioid-Related Problems

Mississippi officials are worried that the state could end up with an opioid problem like other states that have battled with drug addiction. The Daily Journal reported that Gov. Phil Bryant issued an executive order creating an Opioid and Heroin …

New York Announces Health Insurance Reforms to Combat Opioid Crisis

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has announced that new health insurance reforms aimed at combatting New York State’s heroin and opioid crisis will go into effect January 1, 2017. These reforms were part of the legislative package that the Governor signed …

Connecticut Based Insurer Cigna Eases Rules for Opioid Addiction Medication

The health insurer Cigna has agreed to end a policy that required physicians to fill out extra paperwork before they could give patients a drug used to treat opioid addiction. The move announced Friday comes after New York Attorney General …

Massachusetts Resisting Drugmakers’ Efforts to Weaken Anti-Opioid Measures

Massachusetts appears to be bucking efforts by makers of prescription painkillers to kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids. The drugmakers say they’re combating the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for …

Report: Alabama No. 1 in Country for Prescription Opioid Use

Alabama has the highest level of prescription opioid use in the country, and companies that make the painkillers and their allies have hired an average of 18 lobbyists annually in the state since 2006 to push their policies. A joint …

Could This New Drug Ease America’s Opioid Crisis?

So far, the fight against America’s opioid crisis has focused on treating addiction and curbing abuse. In February, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.1 billion to fund health care for addicts, and last month Congress allocated $181 million in …

New Hampshire’s Opioid Crisis Adds Urgency to Drug Prevention Education

As New Hampshire considers mandatory drug prevention education in all grades, the state’s opioid crisis has heightened the sense of urgency for existing programs that largely target teens. A proposal to require at least two hours of age-appropriate drug and …

Employers Pay As 32% of Opioid Prescriptions Are Abused: Report

Nearly one out of every three (32 percent) opioid prescriptions, which are subsidized by America’s employers, is being abused, according to a report by a healthcare data and technology company. San Francisco-based Castlight Health Inc. released the study, “The Opioid …