Despite an expected slight dip in this year’s fatal opioid-related drug overdoses, drug addiction continues to plague Virginia and overdoses remain the leading cause of unnatural death in the Commonwealth.
In fact, overdose deaths, primarily caused by opioid use have outpaced motor vehicle accidents and gun-related violence every year since 2012.
Health Commissioner M. Norman Oliver says the “disease of despair” has a side effect of collateral damage called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome when infants experience withdrawal from the drugs the mother used while pregnant – in response, Virginia’s Dept. of Health is distributing naloxone kits that reverse an opioid overdose, preventing death, emergency medical services and law enforcement involvement.