June 14, 2018 Courtney Tipper According to the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an alarming 40 percent of opioid misusers have admitted to receiving painkillers from a friend or family member at no cost. Another 12 percent admit to purchasing or stealing prescription drugs from someone they know. Dramatically reducing this “pass […]
BlueCross anti-opioid abuse campaign wins prestigious award
June 7, 2018 Staff report, The Tennessean A Tennessee campaign to combat the spread of opioid abuse by promoting the proper disposal of unneeded and expired pills has won a prestigious public relations award. The “Don’t Be An Accidental Drug Dealer” campaign, which was spearheaded by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and MP&F Strategic Communications, was […]
‘Drug Take Back Day’ nets almost 700 pounds of meds in Nashville area
April 28, 2018 Sandy Mazza Some arrived with tote bags full of opioids, sleeping pills, anti-depressants and other potentially dangerous medications. All together, authorities collected nearly 700 pounds of painkillers and other medications across the greater Nashville area during Saturday’s “Count it! Lock it! Drop it!” collection event on National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. Among the […]
Miss Tennessee uses personal tragedy to help fight opioid crisis
March 20, 2018 WKRN Staff NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – On Tuesday, Miss Tennessee took her tiara and her passion for the “Count it, Lock it, Drop it” initiative to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Caty Davis, who was crowned Miss Tennessee in 2017, lost her brother and father to opioid abuse and addiction. She’s since turned […]
Pharmaceutical practices evolve as opioid epidemic surges on
March 15, 2018 Maura Sirianni NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Tennessee has one of the highest rates of opioid prescriptions per person across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With the opioid epidemic surging on, pharmaceutical practices are evolving to keep up. Pharmacists are often the last line of defense between […]
Opinion | Continue collective fight against opioid misuse and abuse
February 24, 2018 Natalie Tate Tennessee’s opioids crisis is nearly unprecedented – but unfortunately, it isn’t new. We saw it on the horizon in the upper east region of the state years ago, where an increasing number of babies were being born dependent on prescription pain medication. We knew we had to take action, and […]
Three Selected For State Drug Abuse Committee
February 4, 2018 Raina Wiseman Drug abuse is a problem that many people face, but one main cause of this may be how easy it is to get prescription drugs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With a late January executive order by Governor Bill Haslam, the Tennessee Commission on Pain and […]
Gov. Bill Haslam unveils $30 million plan to combat opioid crisis in Tennessee
January 22, 2018 Joel Ebert and Anita Wadhwani Educating children, making overdose-reversing drugs available to all state troopers and adding hundreds of prison beds to treat those fighting opioid addiction are part of Gov. Bill Haslam and legislative leaders’ comprehensive $30 million proposal to combat the epidemic. The proposal comes as Tennessee continues to fight the ongoing […]
Opioid painkiller prescriptions may run in families
December 11, 2017 Lisa Rapaport When one person in a household gets prescribed opioids, the other people who live with them are more likely to get their own prescriptions for these narcotic painkillers, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers examined data on about 12.6 million people living in a household where someone was prescribed opioids and […]
Tennesseans participate in latest nationwide effort to fight opioid crisis
Joel Ebert October 28, 2017 Inspired after attending a conference about pain management and opioid stewardship, Jeffrey Hodrick, an orthopedic surgeon with the Southern Joint Replacement Institute, decided to do something about the ongoing opioid crisis that has impacted Tennessee. After approaching administrators at TriStar Centennial Medical Center, Hodrick and others at his practice and the […]
