opioid-crisis

Meet the people deciding how to spend $50B in opioid settlement cash

BY: - July 10, 2023

State councils, as unique as the states are from one another, wield immense power over how the cash is spent.

The ceiling of the main Rotunda inside Pennsylvania’s Capitol building. May 24, 2022. Harrisburg, Pa. (Photo by Amanda Berg, for the Capital-Star).

Pa. Senate votes to ban supervised injection sites 

BY: - May 1, 2023

An individual violating the proposed change would face up to 20 years in prison, a $500,000 fine, or both. Organizations would be subject to a $2 million penalty.

The ceiling of the main Rotunda inside Pennsylvania’s Capitol building. May 24, 2022. Harrisburg, Pa. (Photo by Amanda Berg, for the Capital-Star).

Wolf signs dozens of bills including clean energy tax credits, fentanyl testing and driver’s ed

BY: - November 4, 2022

Gov. Tom Wolf signed a whopping 66 bills into law on Thursday, including measures to provide tax credits for zero-carbon energy production, to punish Pennsylvania Turnpike toll scofflaws, and to provide new tools to combat the opioid epidemic. The bills, passed near the end of the General Assembly’s 2021-22 session, also aim to expand the […]

A woman, Jackie Springer of Shippensburg, looks at a picture of her son, Austin Springer, as she talks about his death from overdosing on fentanyl.

Mastriano pitches 25-year mandatory sentences for fentanyl dealers in fatal overdose cases

BY: - June 27, 2022

With parents whose children died of fentanyl overdoses, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano proposed 25-year mandatory minimum sentences for dealers who provide deadly overdoses of the drug

As the pandemic raged, so did drug overdose deaths | The Numbers Racket

BY: - June 7, 2021

Largely overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, drug overdose deaths climbed by more than 20,000 from 2019 to 2020. 

Pa. opioid deaths increased during COVID-19 pandemic, officials say

BY: - April 29, 2021

Pennsylvania recorded 4,880 opioid deaths in 2020, an increase of 422 deaths from the 2019 tally of 4,458. The increase offsets the progress the Wolf administration’s Opioid Operational Command Center had made between 2018 and 2020, which saw a 20 percent decrease in opioid deaths. 

COMMENTARY

A double whammy | Editorial Cartoon

BY: - December 12, 2020

COVID-19 pandemic contributes to increase in overdose deaths, state health officials say

BY: - December 8, 2020

Since the creation of the Opioid Command Center in January 2018 during the height of the opioid crisis, drug overdose-related deaths have fallen by nearly 20 percent in Pennsylvania, according to Barishansky. However, the trend has been flatlining since the middle of last year, continuing into 2020 and coinciding with the spread of COVID-19  -- data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that overdose deaths increased by nearly 6 percent from April 2019 to April 2020.

COMMENTARY

Wolf extends Pa.’s opioid disaster declaration as COVID-19 cases continue to skyrocket | Friday Morning Coffee

BY: - November 13, 2020

A reminder: Pennsylvania is still fighting a public health war on two fronts.

GALLERY: At the Capitol, a day of remembrance and action for those affected by opioid, substance use

BY: - August 31, 2020

On Monday Morning, the Pennsylvania Chapter of Team Sharing, a support and advocacy group for mothers and fathers who have lost children to substance use joined grieving families on the Capitol steps to remember their loved ones and call for more action from leaders in Harrisburg in addressing substance use and opioid addiction across the commonwealth.

States ‘are our eyes and ears,’ top lawmaker says as Pa. asks Congress for help in opioid crisis

BY: - January 14, 2020

States have been trying to respond to a growing problem of addiction and overdose to opioids and other drugs. Overdose deaths have dropped in Pennsylvania.

COMMENTARY

Two maps that explain the changing geography of the opioid epidemic | Wednesday Morning Coffee

BY: - December 18, 2019

Pennsylvania is making progress. But there are really three opioid epidemics. Not just one.