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Kristin says she, like many women who live on the streets, cope with the daily fear of an attack that they are too sedated to fend off -- or of waking up to find their pants pulled down, bruises and other signs of an assault. It's an injury active drug users often don't report out of shame, distrust of police or fear they'll be labeled a "cop caller" and have trouble buying heroin. (Bebinger, 9/6)

Estimates are that abuse of legal drugs cost more than $70 billion last year – and that doesn’t include the surge of heroin and fentanyl. ... And it is so widespread and so damaging that it seems to be a partial answer to some big puzzles that economists have been grappling with. (Kanell, 9/5)

State proposals to tackle the deadly opioid epidemic have been piling up at the Trump administration for months, as state officials worry that the federal logjam is hampering efforts to combat a crisis that President Donald Trump has labeled a national emergency. About a half dozen states have been waiting for the Trump administration to approve plans to expand substance abuse treatment to their poor residents enrolled in Medicaid. (Pradhan, Ehley and Jennings, 9/5)

Bridgewater State University will offer public access to Narcan in locations across campus to combat potential overdoses, the university said. The university’s police department is launching an “aggressive” opioid overdose prevention program, making the overdose-reversing drug available in 50 defibrillator boxes across campus buildings, including all 11 residence halls, university officials said. (Thompson, 9/5)

Opioid-related overdoses rose more than 80 percent in August compared to a year earlier, but the number of deaths dropped by more than half, authorities said Tuesday. Such overdoses were up slightly during the first eight months of this year over the same period last year, but the number of fatalities fell by more than a third, according to city fire department figures. (Cousineau, 9/5)

Last month, New Hampshire became the latest state to go after Purdue Pharma, alleging the company’s marketing practices were partially to blame for the state’s opioid epidemic. Now, the city of Manchester is also suing Purdue — as well as other opioid manufacturers and distributors — seeking payback for the cost it's incurred because of the drug crisis. (McDermott, 9/5)

A lawsuit filed Friday alleges that Steven Simon urged Johnson County resident Carey Ballou to take Subsys, an oral fentanyl product with a high potential for addiction, even though less risky, less expensive alternatives existed, and she was reluctant to take the drug. The complaint was similar to a lawsuit filed the same day on behalf of Olathe resident James Whiting, who told the Star in July that Simon pressured him to take Subsys without informing Whiting that he was being paid by the drug’s Arizona-based manufacturer, Insys Therapeutics. (Marso, 9/5)