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 […]
Tom Petty
In October 2017, Tom Petty, beloved musician and official heartbreaker, passed away from an accidental opioid overdose. In the last few years of his life, Petty suffered from a series of illnesses, including emphysema, knee problems and a fractured hip. Petty was determined not to let his fans down and continued to perform, not allowing […]
Number of babies born drug dependent in East TN down 18%
July 12, 2017 Kendall Morris The fight against opioids is making an impact in East Tennessee as data shows the number of babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) has dropped in the region. Comparing 2015 to 2016 data, the number of babies born with NAS in Knox County decreased by 18 percent. During the […]
Haslam: Non-cancer patients could see limits on long-term opioid scripts
July 10, 2017 Any Sher NASHVILLE — As he seeks remedies for Tennessee’s opioid abuse epidemic, Gov. Bill Haslam says his administration will explore whether to restrict long-term prescriptions of the powerful and addictive painkillers for many TennCare patients. “Should we ever be long-term prescribing opioids in TennCare in a non-cancer situation? That’s a question […]
State overdose data sheds new light on opioid crisis
Holly Fletcher, Kristi L. Nelson and Anita Wadhwani May 24, 2017 A new report from the Tennessee Department of Health on drug overdose deaths sheds new light on the opioid epidemic plaguing the state, darkening the lines of an emerging portrait of the typical abuser killed by the powerful painkillers. The drug overdose fatalities are overwhelmingly […]
Prescription Drug Misuse Impacts More than 70 Percent of U.S. Workplaces According to National Safety Council Poll
March 9, 2017 ITASCA, Ill., — More than 70 percent of United States employers are feeling the direct impact of prescription drug misuse in their workplaces, according to a survey released today by the National Safety Council. The survey, the first of its kind in the nation, also found that although 71 percent of employers agree […]
Guest Column: Dr. Andrea Willis
Each year, thousands of lives are taken by what has become one of the biggest health crises in recent years – prescription drug abuse. In 2015, there were approximately 1,263 drug overdose deaths in Tennessee. While pain medication is necessary to treat many conditions, there is a need to take action to help prevent what the […]
Help Your Teen Fight Prescription Drug Abuse
According to Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, one in five teens has admitted to illicitly using drugs, and this increasing trend is driven by prescription pain medications, the most commonly abused drugs. Among 12- to 13-year-olds, the misuse of opioids is a growing epidemic and, if not addressed, can develop into an addiction. Here are four […]
There are more opioid prescriptions than people in Tennessee
Health care professionals in Tennessee last year wrote more than 7.8 million opioid prescriptions — or 1.18 for every man, woman and child — even as the state grapples with a scourge of painkiller addiction and abuse. The total places Tennessee second in the nation, behind only Alabama in prescriptions of the drugs, according to IMS Health data. Even though the […]
Next Nashville Storytellers To Focus On Addiction, Recovery
In Tennessee, more people died from opioid overdoses than in car accidents or by gunshots in 2014. For every one person who dies nationally, there are 851 people in various stages of misuse, abuse and treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The abuse epidemic, as The Tennessean reported earlier this year, […]
