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The crisis has reached a boiling point in the region, as a new breed of designer opioids has infiltrated the region’s drug market. As the deaths continue to be tallied, at least 1,600 people in D.C., Maryland and Virginia died from heroin or opioid overdoses in 2016, and that’s just a preliminary figure. Several months of data from last year have yet to be published. (Forzato, 1/9)

Experts say the over-prescribing of opioids in the last 15 years has contributed to the nation’s current heroin epidemic — a slippery slope from recovering patient to recovering addict. Four out of five heroin addicts first became addicted to painkillers, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration says. New CDC guidelines advise doctors to prescribe fewer painkillers for acute pain. And some physicians have even been arrested for selling massive quantities of opioids to drug users. So is it the doctors’ fault? (Forzato, 1/10)

Cardinal Health will pay $20 million in a previously announced settlement with the state of West Virginia in a 2012 lawsuit alleging that Cardinal failed to properly oversee and report a surge in orders of addictive painkillers. The failure took place over a five-year period from 2007 to 2012 and contributed to a rise in the opiate crisis, the state said in its suit against Cardinal and several other drug distributors. (Matzer Rose, 1/9)