OVERDOSE NEWS BULLETIN
News from Across the Commonwealth and the Nation
PENNSYLVANIA
07-06-2018
(Regional) People filtered into the meeting room at Carbon Monroe Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission's Lehighton office on a sunny Tuesday morning.... (PennLive)
07-06-2018
(Delaware) In 2014, when Pennsylvania legislators first passed the law allowing police officers and other first responders to carry Narcan, the overdose-rescue drug, Delaware County's officers were already trained and ready to begin using it... (PennLive)
07-05-2018
(Tioga) The Tioga County Department of Human Services is trying to keep families together while at the same time battling the opioid crisis... (PennLive)
07-04-2018
(Berks)...Instead, Ramsey's public defender was able to get her a chance to join Berks County's Drug Treatment Court program. And while it wasn't an easy process, Ramsey said it was the biggest blessing and gift ever given to her... (PennLive)
07-03-2018
(Lackawanna) Michael Arcangeletti printed 1,000 cards for pharmacists and emergency workers to include with every opioid prescription, syringe package and naloxone dose... (Bucks Courier Times)
07-02-2018
(Centre) The job of a first responder in the rural corners of Centre County is no simple task, but since the state launched a project to fund Narcan -- an overdose-reversal drug -- they have been able save more lives... (WITF)
07-01-2018
(York)...Thompson was kind of apprehensive about the meeting. The police and addicts, it was fair to say, didn't have a good relationship. In the past, most of their encounters resulted in police putting somebody in handcuffs... (York Daily Record)
07-01-2018
(Statewide) Pennsylvania newsrooms have been documenting the opioid crisis for many years. But now, in a special project, “State of Emergency: Searching for Solutions to Pennsylvania’s Opioids Crisis,” they are marshaling their resources to spotlight county by county what Pennsylvanians are doing to try to reverse the soaring number of overdose deaths... (Morning Call)
06-30-2018
(Lehigh)...Known as the Blue Guardian program, it aims to reduce overdose deaths by bringing police and recovery specialists to those who need treatment... (Morning Call)
06-30-2018
(Armstrong) A significant decrease in overdose death rates this year in Armstrong County caught the attention of U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, who recently conducted a heroin and opioid epidemic round table in this borough... (Indiana)
06-30-2018
(Armstrong) Armstrong County leaders say education, agency networking, treatment opportunities and the use of Narcan with bucking the statewide trend in opioid overdoses... (Daily Item)
06-30-2018
(Luzerne) Called “Moms of Cherished Angels,” group members lost a child or a family member to drug overdoses. Besides the support the women offer each other, they also try to help those battling drug addiction... (Times Tribune)
06-30-2018
(Schuylkill) Thirty-four people died of drug-related overdoses in the county in 2017, according to information from the Schuylkill County Coroner’s Office, in a crisis one local paramedic said “crosses all socioeconomic boundaries.”... (Republican Herald)
06-30-2018
(Washington)...try to get high using an opiate, it completely blocks it.”
The drug and alcohol commission distributes the Vivitrol shot through a provider, Allied Addiction Recovery. The program was funded through a $148,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and has been in effect for about a year... (Observer Reporter)
06-30-2018
(Statewide) More than 50 print, digital and broadcast news organizations are casting a spotlight on the diverse and sometimes out-of the-ordinary tactics being used to combat the devastating effects of the opioids crisis across Pennsylvania, from the smallest towns to the biggest cities... (Washington Post)

For links to more "State of Emergency: Searching for Solutions to Pennsylvania's Opioids Crisis" articles, please see:

NATIONAL
07-06-2018
(New Jersey) It had only been a week since he was honored for bringing 13 people back from the brink of a fatal overdose when Louis Trocchio Jr. had to save one more life... (NJ)
07-05-2018
(Florida) Opioid overdose patients on the brink of death are often requiring multiple doses of a life-saving treatment as addictions grow to staggering levels — and first responders in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties are bearing the brunt of the epidemic... (PNJ)
07-03-2018
(National) Physicians write that expanding the availability of medication treatment for opioid use disorder in primary care settings would be a major step toward reducing overdose deaths... (Science Daily)
07-02-2018
(National)...More and more, trouble is following fellow drug users, friends and relatives of those dying from overdoses. With the country's opioid crisis widening – having killed more people in 2016, for instance, than the deadliest year of the AIDS epidemic – bystanders to fatal overdoses are increasingly becoming criminal defendants... (NPR)
07-02-2018
(Minnesota) Minnesota is suing Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the narcotic painkiller OxyContin, following a prolonged investigation into its marketing and other tactics that allegedly contributed to a rising number of patient addictions and overdose deaths... (Star Tribune)
07-01-2018
(Regional)...Beginning July 1, Michigan doctors will be prohibited from prescribing more than a seven-day supply of opioid medication for patients in acute pain — pain from broken bones, bad backs, short illnesses and most surgeries, pain that's relatively short-term.
.. (USA Today)
07-01-2018
(Arizona) The opioid deflection program is a six-month pilot that will give opioid addicts the ability to be quickly placed into treatment with no risk of jail.. (EMS1)
06-30-2018
(National)...This is the collateral damage of addiction, the impact on those who love and worry about the addict. Many parents don’t survive the midnight calls about arrest, overdose, violence, and hospitalization emotionally intact... (Washington Post)
06-29-2018
(Virginia)...The state police announced Friday that all officers through the rank of first sergeant are being trained to carry and dispense the drug naloxone. The department recently purchased over 2,100 Narcan devices, which deliver the drug nasally... (WTOP)
INTERNATIONAL
07-04-2018
(Canada) The pharmaceutical giant whose pain pill triggered an overdose epidemic that has devastated communities across North America has stopped marketing its opioids in Canada... (Globe and Mail)
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Tom Stark , Management Associate, PACDAA
Sent: July 6, 2018