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After years of Republican resistance, Missouri is set to finally launch a statewide prescription drug monitoring program. According to a contract inked earlier this month, the state will pay a medical technology company $1.4 million to operate the program, which is designed to curb opioid addiction. (Erickson, 1/17)

For some college students, the winter break can be a time for visiting doctors and dentists back home. Annual physicals, routine dental cleanings or even the extraction of wisdom teeth might be on the calendar. Teens and young adults who suffered through one of the more excruciating inductions into adulthood  — having their wisdom teeth pulled — might be sent home with a prescription for painkillers. (Blythe, 1/18)

Two months before the use of methamphetamines shut down the library last month, the City and County of Boulder started implementing a program to help people wean off the highly addictive stimulant that has communities scrambling for solutions. The relatively cheap and readily available drug contributes to homelessness, overdose deaths and incarceration rates. (Herrick and Larson, 1/18)

Civil rights organizations and advocates representing three Maryland teens are challenging the state’s oversight of medical records for foster children receiving psychotropic drugs, according to a new federal lawsuit filed this week. (Reed and Costello, 1/17)

A group of South Dakota Republican lawmakers introduced a bill Tuesday to outlaw gender-affirming health care for transgender youth, pushing the state to join at least a dozen others considering anti-transgender legislation this year. The South Dakota bill, unveiled at a state Capitol news conference, aims to keep children younger than 18 from accessing puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapy or surgeries that enable them to present as a gender different from the sex on their birth certificate. It would also punish doctors who provide the care by revoking their medical license and exposing them to civil litigation. (Biraben and Groves, 1/17)

Medical marijuana advocates are once again urging Ohio to allow autistic people to use cannabis. The State Medical Board received multiple petitions to add autism spectrum disorder to the list of qualifying medical conditions for the program. The board receives proposals for new conditions in November and December of each year. (BeMiller, 1/17)

Florida Institute of Technology is opening Brevard County’s first medical school next year. The technical college will be doing so through a partnership with the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine, a New Mexico private school. The schools entered into an affiliation agreement in November and plan to launch a four-year osteopathic medical school on Florida Tech’s Melbourne campus. (Pedersen, 1/17)

Health care will make news in the Georgia Legislature’s budget hearings this week. For people who want to be on Medicaid and people with a stake in the Georgia’s individual health insurance market, state leaders have decisions to make. Here are some things to know. (Hart, 1/17)