Arkansas opioid prescribing, 2006-2016


Arkansas has the second highest opioid prescribing rate in the country. The map shows how the number of opioid prescribing rate — the number of opioid scripts for every 100 people — jumped in most counties between 2006 and 2016, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Opioids' rise has babies entering world going through withdrawal


Infants exposed to drugs in the womb often suffer from neonatal abstinence syndrome and its physical withdrawal symptoms that can last up to four months. Its long-term health effects are mostly unknown -- although early research shows that these children don't do well in school later.

Doctors and officials say that a decade or more of rising opioid use and misuse in Arkansas produced a spike in cases of drug-dependent newborns.

[READ MORE]

Parents on opioids breaking families, taxing foster care


The influx of opioid painkillers in Arkansas has burdened the state's foster care system, with more children being removed from homes because of parental drug use than in previous years, officials say.

In response, the Division of Children and Family Services is starting to collect better data about what separates families in hopes such work will lead to increased grant funding.

[READ MORE]

Opioid-makers gushed dollars to Arkansas doctors


Makers of narcotic painkillers gave millions of dollars to Arkansas doctors between 2013 and 2016. At least 800 state residents died from opioid overdoses during the same period.

Federal data reveal that opioid manufacturers directed $5 million in "general payments" to about three-quarters of the state's doctors for consulting, meals, travel and promotional speaking.

[READ MORE]

State opioid deaths not all tallied; system for investigating, reporting them deemed unreliable


State officials say the four-year death toll from opioid overdoses in Arkansas is likely higher than the 800 found in a federal database.

They just aren't sure how much higher -- mostly because county coroners don't have a consistent system for investigating deaths and because of gaps in training those coroners.

[READ MORE]