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 abuse, and
• $138 million for hospitalizations with alcohol listed as the first diagnosis