When most people think of the heroin problem the country and York County are facing, they usually conjure up an image of a stereotypical junkie with a gaunt face.  But with the drug's increasing popularity in recent years, heroin users are coming in all shapes and sizes, said one York County official...(York Dispatch)

A Pennsylvania veterinarian has used an overdose reversal drug to save a kitten that had been given heroin.  Police said Tuesday they arrested the suburban Philadelphia man who abused the cat..(Patriot News)

The local heroin crisis is not limited to the city of Johnstown.  It has infested many rural communities throughout Cambria, Somerset, Bedford and other neighboring counties.  Elected officials, medical professionals, educators and law enforcement officers are attempting to understand the causes of the problem while developing possible solutions..(Tribune-Democrat)

As Pennsylvania lawmakers continue to mull uses of naloxone, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a new extended-release pill that combines oxycodone with the widely hailed "miracle drug" used to reverse the effects of an overdose of an opiate like heroin...(Delco Times)

This week area police rounded up 60 people suspected of being involved in drug trafficking.  State officials from the governor on down say the abuse of heroin and other opioids is epidemic in Pennsylvania.  A doctor who deals with the youngest victims of drug abuse says, unfortunately, he's seeing more patients..(Central PA)

(Illinois) Nick Ryan, 20, died Aug. 1 of an apparent heroin overdose in Hinsdale, but his father, a former heroin addict himself, hosted a Naloxone training session Thursday because he said it doesn't have to be that way, doesn't have to end that way....(Daily Herald)

(Massachusetts)  They had gathered last week for a memorial service for Sean Stigberg-Mellman, a resident of Falmouth since he was 4 years old.  Dead at the age of 19 from a heroin overdose.  If anything, the many adults in attendance could only ask questions, especially, "What can we do to protect other children?"...(Cape Cod Online)

(Illinois) Tim Ryan's passion is hard to contain. Since announcing last month the start of the Opiate Recovery Group here in the Fox Valley, the businessman and former heroin addict has received nothing but positive feedback about his aggressive attempts to "help one addict at a time."  But it's the one he recently lost that's "fueling my fire" even more...(Beacon News)

(New Jersey) Two dozen people are alive today after overdosing on heroin two months after the first kits of the heroin overdose antidote naloxone were delivered to police departments across Monmouth County, but not every deployment of naloxone results with an overdose reversal, announced Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni...(Link News)

A new, lifesaving product aimed at reducing the death toll from heroin abuse -- developed by a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy -- is in its final round of clinical trials and has received Fast Track designation by the Food and Drug Administration...(Science Daily)

(Massachusetts) At least nine people have died here from suspected drug overdoses during the past six days, prompting authorities Wednesday to issue urgent health warnings as the state's second-largest city became the latest front in the battle against heroin...(Boston Globe)

(Kentucky) Kentucky is one of just five awardees in the nation to receive a $1.08 million "Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention Boost" grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)...(Insurance News Net)

(New Jersey) Borough police officers became the latest in Burlington County to use a heroin antidote to save the life of an overdose victim...Officers immediately began CPR and administered Narcan, an aerosol form of the drug naloxone. The victim began breathing a short time later and then regained consciousness. She was taken to an area hospital for further treatment...(Burlington County Times)

(Georgia) For the second time in as many months a Holly Springs police officer working with paramedics administered a life-saving dose of naloxone to save a person from a heroin overdose...(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Massachusetts)Three more people died from overdoses Tuesday afternoon, the latest in a string of casualties that has authorities on a hunt for the source of the deadly drugs.  Officials said the rate of drug overdoses puts the city on track for more than 500 this year 2014, roughly five times more than the 96 overdoses in 2006...(News Telegram)

Once championed as the answer to chronic pain, opioid medications and painkillers have become a large and costly problem in the United States.  Fatal overdoses have quadrupled in the last 15 years, and opioids now cause more deaths than any other drug, over 16,000 in 2010...(New York Times)

(Kentucky) As heroin deaths continue to rise throughout the Commonwealth, interest in an overdose antidote known as Naloxone or Narcan is being considered among law enforcement officials...(WAVE)

(Delaware) Joined by elected officials, law enforcement officers, first responders, non-profit leaders, and families who have lost loved ones to drug overdoses, Governor Markell today signed legislation authorizing law enforcement officers to carry Naloxone, a prescription drug that counteracts the effects of opioid-related overdoses...(Delaware News)

(Ohio) The rate of Ohio women dying from a drug overdose has skyrocketed by more than 440 percent in the past 14 years. State and federal lawmakers, as well as regional hospitals and treatment facilities, continue to move more resources toward not only the treatment of drug addiction, but also developing an approach to treat the whole person and the root causes of their addictions...(Dayton Daily News)

Our nation is in the midst of an unprecedented epidemic of drug overdose deaths. Overdose deaths have increased five-fold since 1980. In 2009, prescription drug overdoses overtook every other cause of injury death in the United States, outnumbering fatalities from car crashes for the first time...(Huffington Post)

(Ohio) Cincinnati's top cop wants to arm his officers with the lifesaving drug Narcan.  "I think the entire United States has some type of heroin problem. Certainly here in the Tri-State region we have an epidemic," Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell said...(WLWT)

(Massachusetts) An addict seeking treatment in Massachusetts will find it easier to get help under a bill that removes insurers from a key decision-making process and guarantees health insurance coverage at an inpatient setting for up to 14 days, according to lawmakers who advanced newly unveiled substance abuse treatment legislation to Gov. Deval Patrick on Thursday...(Daily Item)

(Kentucky) The Kentucky state legislature passed a sweeping overhaul to its prescription drug law in the summer of 2012 after a flood of overdose deaths, making it significantly harder for people to access dangerous addictive drugs from doctors.  Now it appears Kentuckians have turned to heroin dealers instead...(State Journal)