Drug checking is “a harm reduction practice in which people check to see if drugs contain certain substances,” according to the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. The goal is to give people who use drugs more information about what they’re putting in their bodies, reduce risks and potentially save lives.
“All of the above shows me there’s plenty of crime going on in Asheville, and in certain crime criteria, it’s escalating.”
Medication-assisted treatment. Training on how to administer Narcan. Education and stigma reduction. These are just a few of the initiatives funded by Buncombe County’s opioid settlement money to address the local impact of the opioid crisis.
The expansion of mobile health units throughout Buncombe County is bringing health care where it is needed most — right to them, with minimal barriers.
Area residents noticed when a Norfolk Southern Railway train derailed in Ohio, spewing clouds of toxic gas and later smoke. After all, Norfolk Southern trains pass through Western North Carolina.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy has designated Buncombe, Henderson and McDowell counties as “High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas.” More than two-thirds of Americans live in a county designated as HIDTA, according to the website.
Discussions about health and wellness have been dominated by COVID-19 for nearly three years, and that’s certainly been reflected in the media landscape nationwide. In Asheville, however, the effects of COVID-19 on physical health and mental health are just one story to be told.
“More resources without strategy that apprehends the true nature of the challenge won’t get the public safety and public health job done.”
“The good news is there is no evidence to suggest there is fentanyl being laced into Halloween candy. The bad news is that middle and high schoolers can purchase pills through social media, friends or family.”
On Sept. 13, Buncombe County Health & Human Services issued an alert on social media and to local groups like the Homeless Coalition about a spike in overdoses in the county. “Please be advised, over the last several days there has been a continued spike in probable overdoses in Buncombe County,” the email alert from […]
“Why isn’t this in local news, especially after confiscation of rainbow fentanyl in Cherokee?”
“Given these facts, do you feel Asheville city leaders should reconsider defunding the police?”
Buncombe County EMS has a new tool for helping an individual suffering from an opioid overdose: medication-assisted treatment, or MAT.
Buncombe County experienced a 147% increase in overdose deaths between 2015 and 2017, the most recent period for which data is available from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. According to Emergency Services, Buncombe averages six-to-eight deaths monthly from probable overdoses.
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 […]
“We’ve got an epidemic within a pandemic,” says Kevin Mahoney with the Mountain Area Health Education Center. Social distancing, job losses and drug contamination associated with COVID-19 have all complicated local efforts to manage the impacts of opioid use.
