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Colorado announced new guidelines in 2014 for doctors prescribing opioids. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed with its own even more cautious guidance last spring. Now, across Colorado and the rest of the nation, these policies intended to address opioid abuse have unexpectedly harmed patients who depend on the drugs to treat chronic conditions, pain specialists and patient advocates say. The policies are supposed to offer guidance — helpful advice to doctors to be cautious in prescribing more than a certain amount of opioids to any one patient. (Ingold, 12/6)

Despite the efforts of law enforcement and public health and local school officials, as well as many elected officials, fatal overdoses this year are on pace to be about double those from last year. And, the sheer volume of them is forcing the county's lead law enforcement agency to shift some of its investigative priorities on drug incidents because of the costs involved. As of Monday (Dec. 5), 19.7 percent of the 248 heroin overdoses in Harford this year have been fatal, compared with 13 percent of the 201 total overdoses in 2015 (49 people have died so far this year versus 27 in all of last year). Local police attribute the increase in the number of fatal overdoses to the rise in the use of the powerful opioid fentynal mixed with heroin. (Butler and Anderson, 12/6)

The viral video that showed Ronald Hiers bent over a bench, overdosing on a batch of heroin that nearly killed him, has turned him into many things: a parable on the horrors of drug abuse, a recovering addict, a punchline. But as Hiers stared at the TV and watched the low point of his addiction, he said most people missed the most important thing the scene shows. “I am a son. A husband. A brother. A grandfather. A father. I'm a human being,” he told Memphis CBS-affiliate WREG. “That's what so many people missed about it. Those were two human beings.” (Wootson, 12/6)