Staff writer
CHARLESTON After years of setting up regulations, fixing a banking problem, selecting companies to handle all aspects of creating and selling products, West Virginia’s medical cannabis program could be ready for patients by the fall.
According to the Office of Medical Cannabis within the Department of Health and Human Resources, nearly 1,400 applications have been received from its patient registration system as of Monday for a medical cannabis patient card.
Once a patient is certified to use medical cannabis by a physician approved by DHHR, patients can go to medcanwv.org to sign up for the medical cannabis card. Serious medical conditions include cancer, immunodeficiencies, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, neuropathies, Huntington’s disease, Crohn’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, seizures, sickle cell anemia, terminal illnesses, and severe chronic and intractable pain.
CHARLESTON – A historian of opioid use and drug policy testified, in a federal trial against three major opioid distributors Wednesday, about three principal opioid epidemics that preceded the ongoing crisis.
The City of Huntington and Cabell County sued the “Big Three” drug distributors – McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health – in 2017 over their role in the overdose crisis, after more than 80 million doses of the drugs were sent to the area in an eight-year period.
Wednesday is the third day in the bench trial at the Charleston federal courthouse. Farrell | farrell.law
Under questioning from plaintiffs lawyer Paul Farrell Jr., David Courtwright, who wrote The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business, said the first epidemic, in the late 1900s, came from widespread medicinal use of opioids.
By Steve Keenan
The Fayette Tribune Apr 6, 2021
2 hrs ago
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources on Monday announced additional free Covid-19 testing events in eight counties. As these counties are experiencing increases in Covid-19 cases right now, we encourage all residents to take advantage of these free testing events, said Dr. Ayne Amjad, state health officer and commissioner of DHHR s Bureau for Public Health. Testing is vital if you are experiencing symptoms such as cough, sore throat, runny nose, fatigue or body aches, or have been exposed to someone with Covid-19.
Pop-up events will be held through April 10 in Berkeley, Boone, Fayette, Hardy, Jefferson, Morgan, Putnam and Raleigh counties.
bjohnson@theintermountain.com
ELKINS Several local health facilities have responded to being included in the state Department of Health and Human Resources list, released earlier this week, which claims 165 COVID-19 related deaths had occurred at the facilities on the list but were not properly reported to the state.
A total of 70 facilities were originally included on the DHHR list, including Davis Medical Center in Elkins, where the list claims two of the deaths occurred; Elkins Rehabilitation and Care Center, where one of the deaths allegedly occurred; and Grant Rehabilitation and Care Center in Grant County, where one of the deaths allegedly happened.
jmancini@newsandsentinel.com
CHARLESTON The state of West Virginia is trying to learn why 168 COVID-19 deaths were not reported, officials said Wednesday.
Gov. Jim Justice during his pandemic briefing said the deaths were unreported to the state and most were in hospitals, hospice groups, long-term care facilities and two in the correctional system. The total is 7.2 percent of the 2,330 deaths attributed to the virus in West Virginia since the pandemic began.
Justice, who said he only learned of the number of non-reported deaths 45 minutes before the briefing began Wednesday morning, was upset. He plans to read the entire list of 168 people on Friday during a pandemic briefing.