Tag: drug abuse
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Nurse practitioners ease doctor shortage, but will have to wait to get more authority to prescribe narcotics; opioid epidemic cited
Nurse practitioner Robin Szczapinski talks with her patient, Harold Brashear Sr., at the Louisville Veterans Affairs Medical Center. (Courier-Journal photo by Maggie Huber) They’re not doctors, but they do a lot...
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House sends Senate bill to limit most potent painkiller prescriptions to three days, target traffickers of fentanyl
The state House has sent to the Senate a bill to put a three-day limit on prescriptions of high-potency painkillers, and increase penalties for the sale of fentanyl, in an...
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KET examines successful recoveries from opioid addiction, airs a forum to discuss Kentucky’s opioid crisis
Kentucky Educational Television is airing “Journey to Recovery,” a documentary that looks at Kentucky’s opioid epidemic and explores the state’s available treatment options through personal stories of recovery. The program,...
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Pharmacies dispensing opioids thrive in Clay County, which leads Kentucky in doses of hydrocodone per person: 150 a year
Pharmacies dispensing opioids are thriving in an impoverished, coal-depressed county in Eastern Kentucky, Phil Galewitz reports for Kaiser Health News. In Clay County (Wikipedia map) the unemployment rate is 8.4 percent,...
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Drug-addicted babies more than twice as likely in Kentucky as in rest of nation, but few facilities accept addicted pregnant women
Amy Kalber of Louisville strokes her infant son, Marty Barkley,in a family gathering. Her first two children were born addicted,but the last two were born healthy during her recovery, describedby...
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Ky. has 25 approved syringe exchanges to reduce risk of HIV and hepatitis C outbreaks; other counties debate proposals
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News A minister, a nurse and a physician assistant joined forces in Powell County to educate its citizens about a syringe-exchange program, which should open...
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Reformulation of OxyContin to make it abuse-deterrent is main reason for shift to heroin and deaths from it, study concludes
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News The reformulation of OxyContin in 2010 is the main reason for the large increase in heroin overdose in recent years, according to a working paper...
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Meth labs were more prevalent in ‘dry’ counties in 2004-2010; adds to evidence that making alcohol legal decreases drug use
Meth use is more prevalent in counties where the sale of alcohol is illegal, say researchers at the University of Louisville. They looked at meth-lab seizures in Drug Enforcement Administration...
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New legislator from Northern Ky. hopes to apply background as nurse and state anti-drug officer to her work in General Assembly
A registered nurse who has been Northern Kentucky director for the state Office of Drug Control Policy is among the newly elected Republicans who now rule the state House. Kim...
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Substance-use treatment under Medicaid jumps, following expansion of program and increase in abuse of painkillers
Kentucky’s expanded Medicaid program covered approximately 11,000 substance-use treatment services in the second quarter of 2016, a huge increase from the 1,500 services from January through March 2014, the first...