Klay Porter, 32, recalls overdosing alone at his aunt's house five years ago from heroin laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. He remembers slipping away and thinking “this is it.” Porter isn’t alone. Opioid overdoses led to more than 9,900 emergency room visits in...
From 2006 to 2012, pharmacies and physicians in Colonial Heights received 93 opioid pills per person per year — the highest amount in the Richmond metro area. Between 2006 and 2012, more than 71 million opioid pills flowed into Henrico County. For the county’s 320,000...
Virginia hospitals are monitoring painkiller prescriptions more closely and taking other steps to curb the opioid epidemic, and the efforts may be paying off: Drug overdoses in Virginia have dropped for the first time in six years. In 2016, the opioid epidemic was...
Richmond’s newest campaign to offer intravenous drug users safer resources and greater care quietly kicked off this week, on Monday night in the Museum District. Led by Health Brigade, the group began its Comprehensive Harm Reduction Program, which includes a needle...
“Hi, would you like to be trained in administering Naloxone?” The pharmacy student was standing under the bleachers of the Wise County Fairground during the Remote Area Medical clinic, held last weekend, with a blue medical kit in hand. Admittedly, I had never heard...