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As the death toll from the opioid crisis mounts, families are increasingly weaving desperate warnings into the obituaries of loved ones about the horror that can result when people abuse painkillers, heroin, and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl. Many words of remembrance have been transformed into pleas for help — directed at lawmakers, families suffering similar experiences, and the general public. Families are using these public notices to push for better and more treatment options while spreading the message that addiction is a disease and not something to be endured in shameful silence. (Armstrong, 12/20)

Follow the pills and you'll find the overdose deaths. The trail of painkillers leads to West Virginia's southern coalfields, to places like Kermit, population 392. There, out-of-state drug companies shipped nearly 9 million highly addictive — and potentially lethal — hydrocodone pills over two years to a single pharmacy in the Mingo County town. Rural and poor, Mingo County has the fourth-highest prescription opioid death rate of any county in the United States. (Eyre, 12/17)

As the opioid crisis takes hold, Howard County's only outpatient clinic for those with substance abuse disorders who are Medicaid recipients or uninsured will close on Dec. 31. Roughly 750 of the clinic's clients will move to community care providers as the state phases out grant funding for clinics run by local health departments and transitions to a fee-for-service model that pays health care providers for each service provided. The shift, pushed by 2014 legislation as the state embraces an integrated system of care, reimagines health departments' roles from service providers to local authorities that oversee and manage treatment. (Waseem, 12/20)