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Google is coming to Ohio with what could be a revolutionary way to treat mental health and drug addiction issues. Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. is bringing one of its subsidiaries — Verily — to the Dayton region, sources close to the deal confirm. Verily, formerly known as Google Life Sciences, is part of a multi-organization partnership for a future mental behavioral health and drug addiction treatment offering.

Kratom, a plant-based supplement that consumers say alleviates chronic pain and opioid addiction, could soon be banned in Ohio. The Ohio Board of Pharmacy voted Monday to classify kratom a Schedule I controlled substance alongside heroin, LSD and other dangerous illegal drugs. The board concluded kratom has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use, isn’t safe to use in medical treatment and poses a public health risk.

Over 13 people died a day on average in Ohio due to drug overdoses last year, a new high as the state battles the opioid epidemic. Gov. John Kasich, who will leave office in January, played defense during a Thursday afternoon news conference where the death tally was announced, emphasizing the work he's accomplished to make some progress in the battle against the drugs - such as heroin and prescription opioid-related overdose deaths decreasing.

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.

Ohio officials on Wednesday announced the winners of the second phase of an $8 million competition for projects tackling the state’s opioid abuse crisis. The 12 winning ideas, which each received $200,000, include an online platform that can monitor opioid use, a website that helps addicts find recovery service providers and an application to prevent relapse of opioid use.

As the opioid epidemic continues to impact families and individuals across the state of Ohio, communities are working to find different ways to help combat addition in their areas.

It's an unfortunate reality hitting central Ohio. Mother's across the area dealing with the pull of addiction, thousands of new born’s feeling the effects. Now a new one of a kind clinic here in Columbus aims to help those mothers and their children and hopefully save lives.

As President Trump prepares to declare the opioids crisis a public health emergency, a new report outlines just how expensive that crisis is — in more ways than one. Opioid addiction, abuse and overdose deaths cost Ohio from $6.6 billion to $8.8 billion, according to a new report from the C. William Swank Program in Rural-Urban Policy at Ohio State University.