Mike DeWine

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The federal government is allowing Ohio more flexibility in what services it can provide to Medicaid patients addicted to opioids.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, who is overseeing the first federal opioid trial on Oct. 21, also wrote on Tuesday that the Ohio AG's petition before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was based on a "faulty premise."

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio county commissioners say counties should have control of any settlement money derived from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies.

Gov. Mike DeWine said Friday that evidence recently made public makes clear that drug makers were responsible for the deadly opioid crisis and that they had lied about the addictiveness of their painkillers.

Ohio sues opioid makers, distributors — while giving them large tax breaks

The death rate of Ohioans from opioid use is more than twice the national average and the blame for the state's snowballing crisis has become central to the open-seat race for governor. In the past five years of the most recent statistics available, the number of Ohio residents who have died from opioids has ballooned by a third, to 3,495 in 2016. Mike DeWine, the Republican nominee for governor, has presided as the state's attorney general for the last eight years, leaving him vulnerable to the critique that he's failed to stem the epidemic as it's worsened.