Last verified: May 2026
August 15, 2016 — The Mass Overdose That Changed Everything
At approximately 3:00 p.m. on Monday, August 15, 2016, Cabell County 911 began receiving overdose calls. Over the next four hours, Huntington EMS responded to 28 separate overdoses — all linked to a batch of heroin contaminated with carfentanil and fentanyl analogs. Two people died. The Huntington Fire Department deployed Narcan in volumes it had never imagined. Within days the story had run on the front page of the New York Times, on national network news, and in international press from London to Tokyo. Huntington — a Ohio River city of fewer than 50,000 people — became the international shorthand for the American opioid crisis.
The August 15, 2016 event reshaped Huntington’s political identity and its approach to drug policy. Then-Mayor Steve Williams (D, mayor 2013–2024) became a national harm-reduction voice, expanded the Cabell-Huntington Health Department’s syringe-services program, and built the Quick Response Team (QRT) model that pairs paramedics with substance-use counselors and law-enforcement officers for follow-up visits to overdose survivors. The QRT model has since been replicated nationwide. See full Huntington 2016 page.
Steve Williams, the Opioid Lawsuits, and the 2024 Governor’s Race
Mayor Steve Williams took the lead role among West Virginia local executives in suing opioid manufacturers and distributors. The City of Huntington and Cabell County jointly pursued landmark cases including City of Huntington v. AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia — one of the country’s most-watched opioid bench trials. Williams traveled extensively to speak about the crisis and became a familiar figure on national news.
In 2024, Williams ran for governor as the Democratic nominee, campaigning on a platform that included recreational cannabis legalization as both a public-health alternative to opioids and as a revenue source. He lost to Republican Patrick Morrisey in November 2024 by roughly 26 points, in a state where Donald Trump was carrying the top of the ticket by a similar margin. Williams’s loss removed the most prominent statewide voice for adult-use legalization. See Gov. Morrisey page.
Trulieve Huntington — 100,000-Square-Foot Cultivation Hub
Trulieve, the multistate operator headquartered in Quincy, Florida, operates the largest single cannabis facility in West Virginia: a 100,000-square-foot cultivation and processing operation in Huntington. The facility is the supply backbone for Trulieve’s West Virginia retail footprint, including the Trulieve Morgantown dispensary — the state’s first, opened November 12, 2021 — and the Trulieve Huntington dispensary itself. The Huntington site benefits from Cabell County industrial-zoned land, Ohio River-corridor logistics access, and proximity to Marshall University’s engineering and pharmacy programs.
Trulieve’s investment was a significant signal at the time of WV program rollout: the company committed substantial capital to a state with a relatively small medical-only program and a hostile political climate. As of May 2026, the Huntington facility supports the bulk of Trulieve’s WV product line of vape cartridges, "for vaporization only" flower, tinctures, and topicals (no edibles, no traditional smokable flower per WV restrictions). See Trulieve first-sale page.
Coastal Retail (Curaleaf) and Harvest Care — The Huntington Dispensary Trio
In addition to Trulieve, two other operators serve the Huntington medical market:
- Coastal Retail / Cannabist — affiliated with Curaleaf/Columbia Care, operates a Huntington-area dispensary and has additional WV locations including Morgantown
- Harvest Care Medical / Country Grown — the WV-rooted operator with dispensaries in Beckley and Huntington plus the recently opened Country Grown brand stores; Harvest Care has been the most public on cross-border concerns (see Harvest Care’s November 2025 quote in Mountain State Spotlight on Maryland adult-use)
Three operating dispensaries make Huntington one of the better-served WV markets after Morgantown and Charleston. See WV operators page.
Marshall University and the Student Cannabis Population
Marshall University (~12,000 enrollment) is the second-largest public university in West Virginia after WVU. Marshall’s student population skews regional — many students come from southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and southern Ohio. Marshall as an institution is bound by federal Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act obligations and prohibits cannabis on its campuses regardless of student medical-card status. The Marshall University School of Medicine and the Marshall School of Pharmacy operate under additional federal accreditation requirements.
Student-age patients are statistically a small share of the Marshall enrollment, but the patient-card population in Cabell County is among the highest per-capita in WV, partly because of Marshall’s presence and partly because Cabell County has been at the center of the opioid epidemic and physicians have been receptive to cannabis as a harm-reduction tool. See cannabis-as-alternative page.
The Ohio River Cross-Border Reality
Huntington sits on the Ohio River; the bridges to Chesapeake and Proctorville, Ohio (Lawrence County) are minutes from downtown. Ohio voters approved Issue 2 in November 2023, and adult-use sales began August 6, 2024. A Huntington resident can drive 10–20 minutes across the bridge to an Ohio adult-use dispensary, purchase smokable flower and edibles unavailable in West Virginia, and return — at which point the product is state-illegal under W. Va. Code § 60A-4-401(c) and the WV medical card provides no defense for non-WV-METRC product. See Ohio River cross-border page.
Huntington Cannabis Reality
- Opioid ground zero: August 15, 2016 mass overdose (28 in 4 hours) made Huntington the international face of the crisis
- Steve Williams legacy: opioid lawsuits + 2024 governor’s run on recreational-legalization platform (lost to Morrisey)
- Trulieve hub: 100,000 sq ft cultivation/processing — largest single cannabis facility in WV
- Three dispensaries: Trulieve, Coastal Retail/Cannabist, Harvest Care
- Marshall University: ~12,000 students; federal DFSCA prohibits campus cannabis
- Ohio River border: Lawrence County, OH adult-use dispensaries 10–20 minutes across the bridge since August 6, 2024
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