Opioids in Michigan

Michiganders living with opioid use disorder have three FDA-approved medications they can turn to for treatment: methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone. Here’s how they work.

Federal and state policy changes mean more doctors can prescribe a drug known to help patients fight addiction. But advocates say stigma and other barriers keep Michigan patients from accessing medication assisted treatment.

Some argue a need for more potent — and pricier — overdose reversal drugs; others frame that effort as drugmakers peddling fear. The wrong choice could cost lives.

Michigan nurse Jordana Latozas began her career writing prescriptions for pain pills in “a different world.” Fourteen years later, she said, she’s trying to right the wrong that those pills caused.

Less than a quarter of the money Michigan’s state government has received to fight the opioid crisis has been spent, more than a year after the funds began flowing into state coffers.

Harm reduction is more than needle exchanges. At Grand Rapids-based Red Project, users can ask to have their drugs checked for additives, allowing the user to decide whether to discard or use them.

Michigan governments sharing in a $1.5 billion opioid crisis settlement must invest in housing, peer recovery staff and harm reduction programs like syringe exchanges, according to a new report.

The drug crisis and maternal mortality crisis have converged, notes a new report. Maternal mortality rates overall are increasing.