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At drug treatment centers on Staten Island, the calls disturb the daily routine. The solicitations interrupt meals, counseling sessions and support groups. Sometimes, staff members say, the callers make explicit offers: thousands of dollars to refer a person with a heroin or pain-pill addiction and good insurance. Other offers are more subtle — a recurring donation or a contract. (Jula, 8/23)

[Tina] Louden’s honest, raw confession is just the latest in a string of online posts and even death announcements that have dared to talk about topics long-held as taboos: addiction, drugs, mental illness. For decades in obituaries, mourners were expected to fill in blanks. “Died suddenly” or “passed away at home” became code phrases for “overdose” or “suicide.” But a new wave of parents, like Louden, are harnessing the Internet to turn their children’s deaths into something meaningful. (Mettler, 8/23)

A powerful opioid blamed for hundreds of overdose deaths on the East Coast appears to have made its way to Houston. Drug analysts at the Houston Forensic Science Center found fentanyl 10 times this year in fake pharmaceuticals and powders, according to a news release issued early Tuesday. Fentanyl is a potent opioid used in numerous pharmaceutical drugs that is estimated to be 50 times as potent as pure heroin. (Barned-Smith, 8/23)

One day this June, Wilkes County Sheriff Chris Shew found 22 patients with mental health and substance abuse problems crowding the local hospital’s emergency department, waiting for treatment, transportation or other help. This situation has played out frequently across North Carolina in recent years, but a partial solution is coming within the next year for people in mostly rural Wilkes, Ashe, Alleghany, Watauga and Avery counties. Daymark Enterprises, a service provider contracting with the Smoky Mountains LME-MCO, will open a 16-bed facility-based crisis center in North Wilkesboro. (Goldsmith, 8/24)