SALEM, Ore. — A bill recriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs was passed by the Oregon Legislature on Friday, undoing a key part of the state’s first-in-the-nation drug decriminalization law as governments struggle to respond to the deadliest overdose crisis in U.S. history. The state Senate approved House Bill 4002 in a 21-8 … Read more
PORTLAND, Ore. — Kendra Sawyer spoke with her dad from the Deschutes County jail and told him she loved him. Six hours later, in the throes of opioid withdrawal, the 22-year-old took her own life. A year later, Sawyer’s father, Kent, is left wondering whether his daughter, troubled as she was, might still be alive … Read more
SAN FRANCISCO — The most stolen books from San Francisco public libraries’ shelves are not the hottest new novels or juicy memoirs, they are books about recovering from addiction. Now, city officials want to provide universal access to free drug recovery books, including Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12-step recovery book. San Francisco City Supervisor Matt Dorsey on … Read more
NEW YORK — Smoking has surpassed injecting as the most common way of taking drugs in U.S. overdose deaths, a new government study suggests. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called its study published Thursday the largest to look at how Americans took the drugs that killed them. CDC officials decided to study the … Read more
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Evelyn Jefferson walks deep into a forest dotted with the tents of unhoused Lummi Nation tribal members and calls out names. When someone appears, she and a nurse hand out the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone. Jefferson, a tribal member herself, knows how critical these kits are: Just five months ago, her … Read more
OROVILLE, Calif. — Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging voters to approve a ballot initiative that he says is needed to tackle the state’s homelessness crisis, a change social providers say would threaten programs that keep people from becoming homeless in the first place. In 2004, voters approved legislation that imposed a tax on … Read more
RICHMOND, Va. — John Clair, the police chief of a small Appalachian town in southwest Virginia, spends his days consumed by a growing problem: the frequency with which his officers are tapped to detain, transport and wait in hospitals with people in the throes of a mental health crisis. Officers from Clair’s 21-member Marion Police … Read more
NEW YORK — A new, higher-dose nasal spray for reversing opioid overdoses did not save more lives than the previous standard dose, but it did cause more vomiting and other side effects, researchers wrote in a study published Thursday. The 8-milligram naloxone spray — twice as potent as the highest dose previously available — was … Read more
A Rhode Island city has approved the first state-sanctioned safe injection site, a place where people can use heroin and other illegal drugs and be revived if they overdose. The Providence City Council voted Thursday to establish the site that will be run by a nonprofit and funded with money from opioid settlement money. It … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A bill that would decriminalize all the strips used to test deadly drugs in West Virginia, the state with the nation’s highest overdose rate, is headed to the desk of Republican Gov. Jim Justice. Justice hasn’t said publicly whether he supports the bill, which has received bipartisan support. The proposal follows a … Read more
