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 […]
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 […]
Count It! Lock It! Drop It! ™ Adds New Communities to Program
Last summer, CLD received a grant from the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Health Foundation to expand the program to counties identified as hot spots for prescription pill misuse. Since receiving the grant, CLD has added 24 new counties to its program, making it actively represented in 56 out of 95 counties in Tennessee, and a […]
Emotions run strong at forum on opioid abuse
Daniel Connolly June 6, 2017 As the Shelby County chief medical examiner, Dr. Karen Chancellor has a close-up view of the increasing number of lives ended by drug overdoses. “Every day I come to work there is an overdose death, suspected overdose death or multiple ones,” she told the audience at the Tennessee Opioid Epidemic Forum Tuesday […]
Drug exposure poses risk for first responders
Don Green May 21, 2017 The rash of overdoses related to opioid use is skyrocketing. Not only are individuals caught in the grips of addiction at risk, but innocent victims who may come into contact with these substances can be affected. Most recently, an Ohio police officer was inadvertently exposed to fentanyl during a traffic […]
CVS Health Report Provides Insights About Prescription Drug Abuse in U.S.
To gain a better understanding of Americans’ perceptions of prescription drug abuse, CVS Health conducted a public opinion poll in March 2017 of 2,000 American voters. Below are a few of the key insights the poll revealed about prescription drug abuse in the United States. The majority of Americans have prescription medications in their homes, […]
BlueCross Foundation Grant Puts Lifesaving Overdose-Reversal Drug in Hands of Law Enforcement
Thanks to a $250,000 grant from the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Health Foundation, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and 15 other law enforcement agencies across the state of Tennessee will be receiving lifesaving medicine that could help reduce the number of opioid overdose deaths. This lifesaving medicine, called naloxone, works by blocking or reversing the effects […]
Highway patrol gets naloxone under BCBST grant
Holly Fletcher May 2, 2017 More than 2,800 naloxone kits, the temporary antidote to opioid overdose, will be distributed to a variety of agencies statewide in an effort to get more kits of the drug into the hands of law enforcement and first responders. The Tennessee High Patrol will be receiving 900 kits, and every state […]
Thousands of pills collected during drug take-back day
Adam Tamburin April 29, 2017 Middle Tennesseans got rid of thousands of unused prescription pills Saturday when national, state and local agencies teamed up to host the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. The bi-annual effort to dispose of controlled substances has taken on added significance in the shadow of a deadly epidemic of opioid abuse. […]
