Alcohol & Substance Abuse

Addicts who quit drugs under an abstinence-based program are at a high risk of fatally overdosing if they relapse. Within days, the abstinent body’s tolerance for opioids plummets and even a small dose of the drugs can shut down the lungs.

More than 900,000 U.S. physicians can write prescriptions for painkillers such as OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin. But because of a federal law, fewer than 32,000 doctors are authorized to prescribe buprenorphine to people who become addicted to those and other opioids. Most doctors with a license to prescribe buprenorphine seldom — if ever — use it.

A long-acting implant has gained approval from an FDA advisory committee. It could soon become the latest on a very short list of medical options for treating opioid addiction.

Eight stores in Washington have quietly rolled out access to a drug that stops opiate overdoses. The chain plans to eventually expand to all its locations. In Alaska, that largely depends on the outcome of Senate Bill 23.

Heroin and other opioid overdoses are projected to kill 400 people in New Hampshire this year. Many of them are young. And now one mom is painting portraits of those who overdosed.

Robert Meireis had a tough life that included a history of violence, years in prison, even tattoos tying him to white supremacist groups. That he met a violent end in a double murder discovered last month in West Juneau wasn’t necessarily a surprise to some people who knew him.