Opioid Crisis

Although budget negotiations stalled, the conversation about how to spend this opioid money is far from over.

Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law new restrictions on vaping products, and he's expected to sign a ban on sales of a drug known as "gas station heroin." The goal is to prevent the sale of products that haven't been FDA approved.

The Wake County School Board has approved a new policy regarding the use of an overdose-reversing drug and raised meal prices for the 2024-2025 school year.

WakeMed Health and Hospitals will provide hospital-level mental health and substance use disorder treatments at WakeBrook, the mental health hospital in Raleigh.

As the fight against the opioid epidemic continues, new medicines promise to help. But experts say old remedies shouldn't be forgotten.

Counties are starting to get their first payments from the more than $50 billion dollar windfall secured from drug manufacturers and pharmacies for their role in the opioid epidemic. A public radio collaborative investigated what programs are being funded.

Mental health advocates are concerned that care for a fragile population will decline if Wake County and UNC Health can't reach a contract extension agreement to operate UNC WakeBrook, the mental health hospital in east Raleigh.

Only the person who has overdosed and the person who calls for help are shielded from most prosecutions for substance possession. Sometimes even those people find themselves in legal jeopardy. A new bill would provide protection for everyone at a scene from arrest and from prosecution for nonviolent offenses.

The decision could make the life-saving drug more accessible. Emergent BioSolutions, the drug company that produces Narcan, said it anticipates it will be on store shelves by late summer.

North Carolina saw record highs in opioid overdose hospitalizations and deaths in 2022.