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Ohio Gov. John Kasich stood firm Wednesday against charges from lawmakers and others that the state is not doing enough to tackle the nation's leading number of drug-overdose deaths, principally from opioids. Noting that his budget proposal maintains the state's $1 billion-a-year investment to battle drug addiction - mainly pain pills, heroin and other opiates - Kasich said Ohio "is doing more than any state in the country." The state is giving local communities "the tools, but they need to use them," Kasich said during an Associated Press conference. "The drug problem is not going to get fixed from the top down." (Ludlow, Candisky and Siegel, 2/2)

At least 12 drug overdoses - including one fatality - have been reported in the past two days in Chillicothe, police said. Detective Bud Lytle said five overdoses were reported on Tuesday and at least seven more as of early Wednesday night. (Woods, 2/1)

As part of its fight against the opioid crisis in New Jersey, Gov. Christie on Tuesday called for the addition of 864 beds in 13 counties for the treatment of individuals with behavioral-health and substance-abuse disorders. The targeted counties now have 678 adult psychiatric beds, according to a call for applications published by the New Jersey Department of Health. In the southern half of the state, Burlington and Camdent Counties have a combined surplus of 297 beds while Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Ocean, and Salem Counties have a deficit of 269 beds, the health department estimated using a methodology that calls for 40 beds per 100,000 adults. (Brubaker, 2/1)

Hennepin County officials and community organizations are launching an effort that they hope will reduce the number of opioid overdose deaths in the county this year. The new campaign follows the release of statistics showing that the state's most populous county saw an increase of more than 30 percent in opioid overdose deaths last year. (Collins, 2/1)

The past year, 2016, will set a record for the number of drug overdose deaths in the St. Louis region. While still collecting data, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse – St. Louis Area is expecting a total of 630-640 deaths from overdoses in the past year, most of them opioid related and most impacting younger St. Louisans. Opiate addiction and overdose are issues wracking cities across the country. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 580 people initiate heroin use each day in the United States and 78 people die each day from an opioid-related overdose. (Moffitt, 2/1)

More than 1,800 former players are currently involved in a class action lawsuit charging that they were systematically encouraged to depend on prescription painkillers by doctors and trainers who failed to warn the players of the long-term consequences of the abuse. An argument can be made that, as adults, the players should have informed themselves about the potential danger of the pills and injections. (Littlefield, 2/1)

Often-emotional testimony at the criminal trial of two pain doctors is shedding new light on the sales tactics of fentanyl-maker Insys Therapeutics Inc., and the toll of opioid addiction in this port city along the Gulf Coast. Prosecutors here allege that Drs. John Couch and Xiulu Ruan made $40 million in illicit profit by overprescribing pain medications and dispensing them to patients from the pharmacy they co-owned and operated from the back of one of their pain clinics. (Walker, 2/1)