“I was brought to a room at one point as a county employee, with major county and city staff, and basically told to shut up,” Amy Upham, who worked as opioid response coordinator for Buncombe County Department of Health and Human Services (BCDHHS) from 2019-21, told an audience at Pack Memorial Library last week.
Three candidates for Buncombe County Board of Commissioners gathered at the May 10 Council of Independent Business Owners meeting to lay out their vision for the county’s future direction.
“It’s not going to be fun to point out how historically some things haven’t worked out so great and they have bad impact on business and the residents,” Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods president Rick Freeman told the audience at the Coalition of Independent Business Owners meeting April 5.
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.
The expansion of mobile health units throughout Buncombe County is bringing health care where it is needed most — right to them, with minimal barriers.
Prevention of infections is a crucial part of wound care and decreases the need for antibiotic use. But regularly accessing antibiotics, fulfilling prescriptions and taking medication can present obstacles for many people.
In 2016, Maia Hughes decided to begin recovery after 13 years of substance abuse. But it wasn’t only substance use disorder she needed to address. She had also tested positive for hepatitis C, a virus that spreads through blood.
People who use mushrooms for depression or anxiety often have a clinical history of using pharmaceutical antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication. But for several reasons — undesired side effects, acclimation to the dosage or the drugs simply not working — they find those medications wanting.
Justin Shytle moved to Asheville when he was 7 years old and remembers a childhood attending Bele Chere and skating around the former Vance Monument. But at 14, their childhood came to an abrupt end when they discovered their father dead from an overdose. The experience “opened the door for my IV drug use and […]
“Syringe service programs are the primary drivers behind the reduction of overdose and hepatitis C-related deaths.”
ASHEVILLE, N.C.
Two local agencies, the Needle Exchange Program of Asheville and The Steady Collective, provide clean needles and other supplies to help reduce the negative health effects of habitual drug use in Western North Carolina. Now Buncombe County is considering starting a program of its own to combat an increase in diseases transmitted by reusing and sharing needles.
