“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.
ARC works with people who have substance or alcohol use problems and face criminal charges in Henderson County District Court; participants receive court-ordered treatment while being monitored by criminal justice and recovery professionals.
The expansion of mobile health units throughout Buncombe County is bringing health care where it is needed most — right to them, with minimal barriers.
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.
Buncombe County EMS has a new tool for helping an individual suffering from an opioid overdose: medication-assisted treatment, or MAT.
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 […]
