[photo] A sign points to the entrance the Community Outreach Center in Austin, Ind., on April 4, 2015. (Tyler Stewart, AP)

State and local health officials began a needle-exchange program Saturday in a southeastern Indiana county where an HIV outbreak among intravenous drug users has grown to nearly 90 cases.

Scott County's needle-exchange program was created through an emergency executive order signed last week by Gov. Mike Pence in an attempt to curb the state's largest-ever HIV outbreak. That 30-day order temporarily suspended Indiana's ban on such programs, but only for the southeastern Indiana county about 30 miles north of Louisville, Kentucky.

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A syringe is pictured along West Main Street in downtown Austin, Ind., in Scott County on Tuesday, March 24, 2015. (Christopher Fryer / AP)

Years ago, William Cooke sensed a crisis building. The only doctor in rural Austin, Indiana, noticed that intravenous drug use was soaring in his town of roughly 4,300, where 23 percent of residents live below the poverty line. He feared that people addicted to injectable painkillers might be plucking used needles off lawns, shooting up -- and passing them on.

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It's an uphill battle

[photo] (John Dole / Scripps Research Institute) Kim Janda of the Scripps Research Institute is shown in front of a board that depicts molecule drawings of heroin and cocaine, with the structures of vaccines that potentially could target those two drugs shown beneath.

In one picture, H. Joseph "Joey" Ressler is smiling at his mother and lifting her off the ground. In another, a selfie, he's grinning like a little kid as two motorcyclists roar up from behind. He was just 24, and the future seemed limitless for the happy, talented young man.

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A Richland woman died Wednesday in her apartment from a suspected heroin overdose, leaving her 3-year-old son alone in the residence until police found him.

The woman was identified as Lauren Wilson, 34, of Thomas Village in the 5600 block of Community Center Drive.

Police were called Wednesday afternoon by Ms. Wilson's mother because she was unable to contact her daughter by phone, Northern Regional Police Department Chief T. Robert Amann said today.

Police found Ms. Wilson's body and a syringe.

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Recent headlines tell it all: "9 dead from apparent heroin ODs over weekend in Kensington area"; "Medical examiner: Philly overdose surge may have killed 35 over 5 days"; "New Jersey's overdose nightmare hits a new peak"; and "Growth in the use of opioids is fueling a nationwide epidemic of deaths from drug overdose".

Heroin mixed with fentanyl - or heroin alone - may be responsible for this surge in overdoses. In the past, Philadelphia typically had three overdoses a day and they were not all fatal. Last June, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office confirmed nearly 700 drug-related deaths in 2015, twice as many deaths as there were from homicides. At the current rate, 2016 will end with even more.

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It looks like pot. It smells like pot. But it's hemp, marijuana's legal cousin, and it's taking over the Bluegrass state.

Across the rolling hills of Kentucky, which just two decades ago was the most tobacco-dependent state in the country, farmers are planting less of the crop after rising health concerns shrunk demand. Instead, they're increasingly turning to hemp and have more than doubled sowings of the cannabis variety in 2016 to become the No. 2 producer in the U.S., trailing Colorado.

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[photo] Heather Skorinko had hoped to grow industrial hemp on her North Whitehall Township farm, but the state's restrictive pilot program will lock out most family farms, she said. (APRIL BARTHOLOMEW/THE MORNING CALL)

Industrial hemp returns to Pennsylvania in 2017. So why are advocates so riled up?

Too often in recent years, Heather Skorinko has struggled to make money growing corn and soybeans on her North Whitehall Township farm, which has been in the family for more than 120 years.

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Pa. Physician General Dr. Rachel Levine during a meeting with the staff of the Twin Lakes treatment facility near Somerset for people suffering with alcohol and substance abuse.

Pennsylvania's avalanche of opioids that rolled from factories through pharmacies to medicine cabinets, and then tumbled into the streets with tragic results, may finally be slowing thanks to pressure on the prescribing practices of its doctors.

This year, the long-lagging state caught up with the regulatory steps of many of its neighbors, as Gov. Tom Wolf and legislators from overdose-plagued districts wrote new laws. Initial data suggests that attention to the overprescribing of opioids - widely blamed for starting addictions that progress to heroin use - has started to affect doctors' decisions.

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The 44-year-old mother who answered the door in Lincoln-Lemington on the evening of Dec. 15 had the "pin point" eyes of "someone who has recently used opioids," a Pittsburgh police officer wrote.

The officer was responding to a 911 call suggesting child endangerment. "I do suffer from using heroin and I'm trying to stop, but I keep using," the woman admitted, according to the officer's affidavit. She led police to the makeup bag under the throw pillow, where they found six stamp bags of heroin and three hypodermic needles, the officer wrote.

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[photo] Toby Talbot / APWith prescriptions dropping in the United States, companies have started to promote OxyContin and other opioid drugs in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

A former adjunct associate professor at Temple University has helped a leading maker of opioids promote potentially addictive pain medications in new foreign markets that have not yet seen an overdose crisis like that in the United States, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found.

The physician, Joseph V. Pergolizzi Jr., is based in Naples, Fla., and has not been affiliated with Temple since June 2014, the school said.

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Two young parents died of apparent drug overdoses in a Pennsylvania home about a week ago.

Left alone in her bassinet, the couple's infant died three or four days later. Authorities said 5-month-old Summer Chambers died of dehydration and starvation, the Associated Press reported.

She and her parents, Jason Chambers, 27, and Chelsea Cardaro, 19, were all found dead Thursday in a home in the Kernville neighborhood of Johnstown, about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Officials with the Johnstown Police Department were unavailable for comment Saturday.

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[photo] MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff PhotographerCharito Morales, center, with Homequarters and Friends, passes out hot chocolate and candy to those that ask for it at 2nd and Indiana as part of a holiday program on Monday, Dec. 19.

The sun gave off no heat and just a flash of orange light as freezing do-gooders sang Christmas carols Monday evening in Fairhill to an encampment of homeless heroin addicts.

The singers, many from Home Quarters and Friends, a nonprofit faith-based community group, stood on the edge of the infamous El Campamento, a tent city of 75 to 120 addicts beside the Conrail tracks.

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Officials, former inmate contrast the emphasis on treatment vs. incarceration

When Leola Bivins was first sent away for dealing drugs, she was a 22-year-old high school dropout with a 2-year-old daughter at home.

Addiction was the center of the life she knew in East Stroudsburg, where she was born and raised, she recalled recently. Bivins' mother was a heroin addict - she eventually died of an overdose - and seemingly everyone around her was either selling drugs or abusing them, Bivins said.

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The day after Gov. Christie signed a bill allowing vets to use marijuana for post-traumatic stress syndrome, he was greeted by cheers - - and some boos - as he exited his black SUV and walked to the entrance of the Trenton Statehouse.

In a video clip posted on Facebook last month, he was more stunned by the group that was clapping.

Over the last two years, the group of five to 30 protesters would occupy a spot near the door most Thursdays and deliver speeches about the virtues of treating health problems with cannabis. They would set up orange traffic cones as a nod to Bridgegate and the roadblocks they said the Republican governor had created to keep the medical marijuana program from growing. Christie had called the program a front for the legalization of recreational marijuana and was against expanding it.

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Doctors in the United States are not terribly concerned about your marijuana use, according to a study published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Researchers presented a representative sample of 233 primary-care physicians with nine hypothetical patient behaviors -- tobacco use, alcohol use, obesity, etc. -- and asked them how much of a problem they thought these behaviors were on a 10-point scale. Their goal was to suss out differences in doctors' attitudes and treatment behaviors based on their political affiliation.

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Borough could limit locations by zoning code

LANSDALE) Borough officials are looking ahead to a topic that looks likely to lead to months of discussion.

What sort of local rules and regulations should be put in place for medical marijuana facilities?

"This particular use is legal, now, in Pennsylvania: the distribution of it, the growing of it, and the cultivation of it," said Assistant Borough Manager John Ernst.

"However, the legislature has not come to a final conclusion and agreement on what the laws actually say, and when it will be finally brought to a point where it can be enforced," he said. Back in April the state legislature approved a bill legalizing the provision of medical marijuana in Pennsylvania, and state officials said at that time it would take roughly two years for regulations to be fully written and facilities to be opened. Details are still far from finalized, Ernst told council's code enforcement committee, but early indications are that the state legislature will pass rules and regulations governing medical marijuana facilities similarly to pharmacies, with medical marijuana only available in pill, cream or tablet forms - not leaf.

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Gov. Tom Wolf 's call last week for decriminalizing small-scale marijuana possession is not as controversial as it might seem. In effect, it is a call for a uniform state policy to ensure equal justice.

Across the state many prosecutors and police agencies already have adopted policies to forgo prosecuting smallamount possession. Instead, they press treatment and rehabilitation, reducing costs associated with prosecuting the cases and focusing resources on more dangerous drugs and large-scale distribution.

The state District Attorneys Association does not oppose the change advocated by the governor, but the Legislature regularly has failed to act on bills to that effect.

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HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania needs to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana possession, Gov. Wolf said Monday, yet he remains guarded about the kind of recreational legalization that is in place in several western states.

While some cities have stopped arresting people for possessing small amounts and prosecutors have been downgrading it as a crime, the state should act because too many people are still going to prison for marijuana possession, Wolf said.

"I think we need to do that in a more systematic fashion," Wolf told WITF-FM's Smart Talk program. "There are too many people who are going to prison because of the use of very modest amounts, or carry modest amounts of marijuana, and that is clogging up our prisons, it's destroying families, and it's hurting our economy, so I think decriminalization is the first step."

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HARRISBURG (AP) - Pennsylvania needs to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana possession, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday, yet he remains guarded about the kind of recreational legalization that is in place in several western states.

While some cities have stopped arresting people for possessing small amounts and prosecutors have been downgrading it as a crime, the state should act because too many people are still going to prison for marijuana possession, Wolf said.

"I think we need to do that in a more systematic fashion," Wolf told WITFFM's Smart Talk program. "There are too many people who are going to prison because of the use of very modest amounts or carry modest amounts of marijuana, and that is clogging up our prisons, it's destroying families and it's hurting our economy, so I think decriminalization is the first step." According to the marijuana advocacy group NORML, 20 states and Washington, D.C., have decriminalized certain marijuana possession offenses, making it either a summary offense, like a minor traffic violation, or a misdemeanor that carries no threat of jail time.

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Federal Officials Remain in a Haze When It Comes to Articulating a Comprehensible Policy on Marijuana. Perhaps Last Week's Ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Curtailing the Feds From Prosecuting Legitimate Growers and Distributors Will Help Clear the Air.

Half the nation's states, led by California, permit medicinal applications. Four states and the District of Columbia allow recreational use. In November, California could become the fifth.

Yet the federal government still sees marijuana as a dangerous drug and dispensary operators as prosecution targets.

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