Tag: drug abuse
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Oregon may show the way for Kentucky in drug treatment
In facing up to its need for more drug-treatment facilities, Kentucky could learn some lessons from Oregon, Courier-Journal reporter Laura Ungar writes in the third and last part of her...
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Cheaper heroin showing up in Eastern Kentucky as crackdown on pain pills makes that trade less attractive
About 60 grams of heroin, worth about$8,000. (AP photo) It was only few months ago that Northern Kentucky law enforcement officers and substance abuse clinics began expressing grave concern that...
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Covington police chief: New prescription-drug law has unintended consequence of encouraging pain pill addicts to use heroin, commit crimes
Black tar heroin Kentucky’s new prescription drug law may be having its desired effect of taking prescription painkillers off the streets, but could be forcing those very same addicts into...
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Pill-mill bill causing problems for patients who have long-term prescriptions: expensive drug-screening tests
In July, Kentucky started making long-time holders of certain controlled-substances prescriptions submit to urine tests to determine if they were actually taking the drugs, rather than selling them. Because insurance companies...
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UK study will try to stem high-risk, health-damaging risks in drug-using rural women in Appalachian Kentucky
Researchers at the University of Kentucky have embarked on a five-year study that aims to lower behavioral risks of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C among disadvantaged, rural women in Appalachian Kentucky....
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Pikeville newspaper spotlights local doctors and pharmacists charged in prescription pain-pill epidemic, forecasts more action
The Appalachian News-Express, the thrice-weekly newspaper in Pikeville, has turned the spotlight on Pike County physicians and pharmacists who are aiding and abetting the abuse of prescription painkillers. We have...
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Bath salts, synthetic drugs change too fast for foes to fight
Bath salts, which mimic the effects of drugs like cocaineand speed. The Patriot-News photo by Chris Knight. Though legislators across the country, including Kentucky, have passed laws to ban synthetic...
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Book on Appalachian health gets good review from doctor
A new book discusses the health disparities that affect rural and urban Appalachians and has won the praise of a Kentucky physician, who calls its impact “profound.” Appalachian Health and...
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New form of Oxy is harder to inhale and inject, so drug users are turning to heroin, Opana for high
A new formulation of OxyContin makes it harder to inhale or inject. Drug Enforcement Administration photo. A change in the formulation of the powerful drug OxyContin has addicts turning to another...
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Coventry changes course, will pay for addiction-treatment drug
Reversing its decision, likely after it was pressured to do so, a Medicaid managed-care organization will continue to pay for a drug used to treat drug addiction. Coventry Cares said...