Catherine Sweeney

The Tennessee Department of Correction is scheduled to execute Byron Black on Aug. 5, but court challenges regarding the case are still playing out.

Appalachian states have had some of the highest overdose rates in the country over the past decade. But officials have been slow to adopt some harm reduction efforts that could save lives.

Tennessee will execute Oscar Franklin Smith this week, while a lawsuit challenging the state’s new lethal injection protocol makes its way through the court system.

On Thursday, Tennessee plans to carry out its first execution since 2019 by means of lethal injection. It’s the fourth scheduled execution date since 2020 for Oscar Smith, who was convicted of killing his estranged wife Judith Smith and her two sons Jason Burnett and Chad Burnett in 1989.

Business owners and city officials in Nashville have implemented a program that uses an opioid reversal kit created in West Virginia to bolster harm reduction efforts in the city’s tourism district.