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Starting Jan. 1, health-care providers in New Hampshire will have to check the state's prescription drug database every time they initially prescribe opioids for their patients - and then check again at least twice a year. It's not a simple task. Over the past year, more than 45 million doses of Schedule II painkillers - drugs such as oxycodone and fentanyl that have figured largely in the state's opioid crisis - were dispensed in New Hampshire, according to data from the state's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. (Wickham, 12/3)

For every person with an opiate problem who walked through his agency’s doors in 2000, psychologist Joe Gay said, there are now 50. The years between have been a boon for addiction. Gay and others in southern Ohio watched it snake through their communities like a virus, flourishing in areas with high poverty, high unemployment and scant public resources. (Price, 12/2)

Physicians with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fear progress made in preventing the spread of HIV could be eroding because of the continued opiate epidemic. The doctors say addicts, particularly among whites, reuse needles to inject the deadly drugs. One consequence of the widespread heroin and fentanyl problem is the increased risk of the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B and C through unsafe or dirty needles, the physicians said. (Grossmith, 12/3)