WTF: Fentanyl test strips

North Carolina criminalizes the possession of drug-testing equipment as drug paraphernalia. The state defines paraphernalia as “all equipment, products and materials of any kind that are used … [for] testing, analyzing … or otherwise introducing controlled substances in the human body.” But the state also exempts the possession of fentanyl test strips “for personal use.”

Blake Fagan

WNC health care providers work to cut opioid prescripti­ons

Drug abuse changed during the 13 years that Adam McIssac has been working as a drug and alcohol counselor in Asheville. At the beginning, McIssac mostly saw clients who were addicted to methamphetamine. But over time “pills,” including opioids like oxycodone (OxyContin) and hydrocodone (Vicodin), became the main drugs that his clients abused. Opioid abuse […]

On a mission: Special treatment court helps troubled veterans regroup

Military service is difficult enough, but for many, life gets even harder once they’re done. Over half of the 2.5 million soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan during America’s longest continuous period of war have returned with mental health conditions directly related to their time in uniform. Twenty percent have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress […]

Update: To the brink and back: Opioid abuse and treatment in WNC

Amid escalating use and abuse of opioids nationwide, the number of local narcotics-related overdoses has increased rapidly in recent years. The drug naloxone can temporarily suspend those drugs’ effects, and the Asheville metropolitan area leads the state in confirmed cases of opioid overdose reversal, according to the N.C. Harm Reduction Coalition.