(Updated at 4:30 p.m.) Three days into the school year, Wakefield High School has logged a potential student overdose.
Medics were dispatched to the school at 11:30 a.m. and again about 45 minutes later for two students suffering possible drug overdoses — or, at least, the effects of suspected narcotics — according to scanner traffic.
Next week a new county government van will hit the streets, providing on-the-scene behavioral health services.
The van will be operated by a new “Mobile Outreach Support Team,” consisting of “a licensed behavioral health clinician, a certified peer recovery specialist, and an outreach worker” from Arlington’s Dept. of Human Services.
A week after announcing an arrest for a 2022 fatal overdose, Arlington County police have charged two more people in another deadly opioid overdose.
A 19-year-old Arlington man and 19-year-old Fairfax woman are facing manslaughter and other charges in connection to a March 2023 overdose in the Courthouse area. A man died after being found unresponsive in a stairwell; police say he was sold drugs containing fentanyl by the suspect, Shan Mehmood.
A 30-year-old Lorton man is being charged with involuntary manslaughter after a fatal Arlington overdose.
A man died in a Penrose home last June after overdosing on drugs that contained fentanyl and mirtazapine, according to Arlington police.
A Washington-Liberty High School senior was killed in a double homicide yesterday in Fairfax County.
Braden Deahl, 18, was a standout soccer player on the W-L varsity team who had committed to play at St. Mary’s College of Maryland earlier this month, according to an athletics website.
(Updated at 2:45 p.m.) Today is the first day high school-aged Arlington Public Schools students can carry naloxone in schools.
Students in grades 9 and above can now carry the opioid reversal drug if they have consent from a parent or guardian, according to the school system. Those who are at least 18 years old can also provide consent if they wish.
When Arlington firefighters respond to drug overdoses, they could soon start bringing along enough doses of an opioid-reversal drug to leave some behind.
This is part of a statewide effort “to prevent fatal overdoses and increase community access” to the nasal spray Narcan, one form of the reversal drug called naloxone.
An Arlington doctor is facing federal charges after a grand jury indicted her for the illicit distribution of opioid pills.
Dr. Kirsten Ball is facing nearly a dozen counts of charges related to oxycodone distribution. Federal prosecutors say she and her office manager, who was convicted and sentenced last year, conspired to dispense “vast quantities of oxycodone to her patients — contrary to ordinary standards of medical care.”
An employee of the Arlington County Public Defender’s Office appears to have been duped into smuggling drugs into the local jail.
An apparent misunderstanding over recent changes to the delivery of personal mail could have contributed to the advocate’s arrest, according to her boss, Chief Public Defender Brad Haywood.
(Updated at 4:15 p.m.) As more parents and caregivers grapple with substance use addiction among youth, they are increasingly turning to the juvenile justice system as a last resort.
Over the past year, there has been upwards of a 100% increase in the number of petitions being made for court-ordered services, such as drug treatment, according to Hon. W. Michael Chick, Jr., a judge with the Arlington County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Drug use intervention programs for youth are in short supply in Arlington County, according to people who help youth with substance dependencies.
The need is particularly acute for younger teens, as the onset of exposure to and abuse of drugs is trending younger, National Capital Treatment and Recovery Clinical Director Pattie Schneeman said in a recent panel.
