WRAL coverage of the opioid crisis

If you are seeing some behaviors in your child that concern you, it may be something other than typical teenage behavior.

They'd be tasked with assisting district attorneys across the state handle large-scale fentanyl trafficking, wiretap, and overdose cases.

Overdose deaths in North Carolina rose by 22% in 2021, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Last year in both North and South Carolina, federal officers seized 18.75 pounds of the synthetic opioid. That's more than they located the previous two years combined.

The number of deadly overdoses is down compared to previous years. However, Raleigh police are responding to an increase in overdose calls.

More than three-quarters of the state's overdose deaths reported in the first eight months of 2021 involved fentanyl, putting the year on track to surpass the record-high number of fatal fentanyl-involved overdoses in 2020.

The opening paragraph of the Dec. 19 Facebook post said, "It was announced this week that more people, aged 18-45, died of Fentanyl overdoses in 2020 than covid, car accidents, cancer, + suicide combined." PolitiFact checks the claim.

On the heels of deadliest year for overdoses in U.S. history, there's a shortage in naloxone

The Raleigh field office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is warning against a surge in counterfeit prescription pills in North Carolina. Three Apex High School friends died within three months of each other last year.

Federal data released for the first time is providing more detail on the millions of prescription opioid pills that flooded the country as the epidemic exploded nearly a decade ago. But in North Carolina, state public health officials have for years been putting data to work fighting the crisis.

Tired of aches and pains? There are some relief options that don't involve drugs.

In researching and producing "Searching for a Fix" there were some things that surprised me and one thing that did not. I was surprised how widespread the problem of prescription opioid and heroin addiction is, how users switch from the former to the latter because heroin is cheaper and easier to get and how there appears to be no real demographic for someone who is addicted to heroin

For those on Medicaid, there are basically two choices to control the withdrawal symptoms that come with opioid addiction.

The Town of Cary wants to screen resident's poop in order to learn where people are using opioids.

Ahead of the new school year, Orange County school leaders are making sure their staff is aware of the growing problem with substance abuse. About 75 staff members took part in a seminar on Wednesday at Gravelly Hill Middle School in Hillsborough.

Some experts call a statewide prescription database the single greatest tool for combating the growing opioid epidemic in North Carolina, but a WRAL investigation found that fewer than one in four doctors use it.

Jeanne Connolly, 58, was thinking about retirement. That all changed when her daughter became addicted to opioids and walked away, leaving Connolly to care for her granddaughter, Kevie Grae.

About one of every three people in North Carolina say they have been affected by the opioid addiction crisis, according to a new Elon University Poll.

Heroin is no longer a back-alley drug. It's mainstream, in your neighborhood and in homes across North Carolina. The path from prescription opioids like Oxycodone and Percocet to cheaper and more readily available heroin is a short one.