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With other states watching to see how New Hampshire combats the opioid crisis using the Safe Stations approach, organizers of the program say there is still a lot to be done to make it more successful here at home. Manchester began the program in May 2016, with all 10 of the city’s fire stations becoming access points for drug users seeking addiction treatment. Nashua launched its Safe Stations program in November 2016, and has seen its fatal drug overdoses decline by about 21 percent in the past two years. (Houghton, 10/26)

For Zachary Dezman, an emergency physician in heroin-plagued Baltimore, there is no question that offering addiction medicine to emergency room patients is the right thing to do. People with a drug addiction are generally in poorer health than the rest of the population, he said. “These patients are marginalized from the health-care system. We see people every day who have nowhere else to go. “If they need addiction medicine — and many do — why wouldn’t we give it to them in the ER? We give them medicine for every other life-threatening disease.” But elsewhere in the country, all but a few emergency doctors and hospital administrators see things differently. (Vestal, 10/28)

But heroin addiction and abuse are not just a big city problem, as [Ty] Trenary had thought. While the bulk of fatal overdoses still happen in urban areas, the rural overdose rate has increased to slightly surpass that of cities. Rural Americans say drug addiction and abuse are the most urgent health problems facing their local community, according to a new poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In the poll, 48 percent of people said opioid addiction has gotten worse in their community in the past five years. (Boiko-Weyrauch, 10/28)