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Schools are going beyond "Just Say No" as they teach students as young as kindergartners about the dangers of opioids in the hope that they don't later become part of the growing crisis. Some states have begun requiring instruction about prescription drugs and heroin, and districts are updating their anti-drug teachings to move toward interactive and engaging science-based lessons they hope will save lives. (1/27)

Officials in Seattle on Friday approved the nation’s first “safe-injection” sites for users of heroin and other illegal drugs, calling the move a drastic but necessary response to an epidemic of addiction that is claiming tens of thousands of lives each year. The sites — which offer addicts clean needles, medical supervision and quick access to drugs that reverse the effects of an overdose — have long been popular in Europe. Now, with the U.S. death toll rising, the idea is gaining traction in a number of American cities, including Boston, New York City and Ithaca, N.Y. (Zezima, 1/27)

Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Wes Adams grew up with an alcoholic father and has spent two years as lead prosecutor of a county hit hard by Maryland’s opioid epidemic. For a decade, he and his wife did what they could to support her brother, Nick Hileman, whose dependence on prescription painkillers had grown into an addiction to heroin. So when Adams got an unexpected phone call from Hileman’s wife on the morning of Jan. 11, he was pretty sure he knew what he was about to hear. (Hicks, 1/29)

First came Martin Shkreli, the brash young pharmaceutical entrepreneur who raised the price for an AIDS treatment by 5,000 percent. Then, Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan, who oversaw the price hike for its signature Epi-Pen to more than $600 for a twin-pack, though its active ingredient costs pennies by comparison. Now a small Virginia company called Kaleo is joining their ranks. It makes an injector device that is suddenly in demand because of the nation’s epidemic use of opioids, a class of drugs that includes heavy painkillers and heroin. (Luthra, 1/30)