Shelby County Commissioners heard the first steps of a possible plan to combat the opioid epidemic sweeping the county and the state Wednesday. But the first move of the fight has a steep price tag. “I thought this was a good way to start and really look at what’s possible for us to do,” said… Read More
Teresa Waters, chair of preventive medicine at University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center who leads a policy research group, dug into the costs associated with substance abuse. The $2 billion cost to Tennessee includes: • $46 million for babies born in the state with neonatal abstinence syndrome, • $422.5 million for hospitalizations associated with opioid… Read More
You often hear about Memphis’ high homicide rate, but the rate at which people are dying from overdosing on opioids is just as alarming. The opioid epidemic is grabbing headlines. From Shelby County suing pharmaceutical companies to Donald Trump declaring the problem a health emergency. So how bad is it? According to the West Tennessee… Read More
A Memphis doctor who knows first-hand the pain of losing a child to an overdose is fighting to change medical education in Tennessee so there are more physicians throughout the state with addiction medicine expertise. Dr. David Stern, vice-chancellor for clinical affairs for the University of Tennessee’s College of Medicine and the University of Tennessee… Read More
As lawmakers, prosecutors, doctors and law enforcement officers all battle over how to solve the heroin and opioid epidemic, one man, a recovering addict, says he knows the answer. He doesn’t want to use his name or show his face, so we’ll call him John. “It comes back to the stigmas of addiction,” he said.
Like the rest of the country, Tennessee hasn’t been a spared the opioid crisis. Between 2011 and 2015, over 6,000 lives were lost in the state due to overdose deaths from opioids. There are other longstanding addiction problems as well. For instance, alcohol is still the most commonly abused substance in Tennessee. About 1 in… Read More
Tennessee leads most states in taking hard hits from the opioid epidemic, but if Dr. David Stern gets his way, the state also will lead the charge in combating the crisis. As vice chancellor for health affairs for statewide initiatives at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Stern is proposing adding standardized… Read More
