HuffPost Among 2015 George Polk Award Winners

Huffington Post reporter Jason Cherkis has received a 2015 George Polk Award for "Dying To Be Free ," a look into how some treatment centers are depriving opioid addicts of a medication proven to help them overcome addiction.

Cherkis' eight-part, 21,000-word article examines publicly funded treatment centers that follow a philosophy of abstinence, refusing to treat patients with the drug, Suboxone, and forcing them to quit cold turkey instead.

Long Island University announced the 2015 award winners on Sunday and issued the following praise for Cherkis' work:

"Delving into 93 fatal overdoses in a single year in three Kentucky counties, Cherkis put names and faces to heartbreaking outcomes for addicts who could not break their habit on abstinence alone. A week after his story ran the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy announced that drug courts insisting on strict abstinence would no longer receive federal funds and within months officials in state after state followed suit."

The school issued 17 George Polk Awards in 16 categories this year. The prize "focuses on the intrepid, bold, and influential work of the reporters themselves, placing a premium on investigative work that is original, resourceful, and thought-provoking," according to a statement on the awards website.

George Polk was a CBS News correspondent in Greece who was shot and killed in 1948 while covering the country's civil war.  Long Island University established the awards in 1949 in his honor.

Other 2015 winners include several New York Times journalists who reported on Navy SEALs , a team of Associated Press reporters who covered the Thai fishing industry , and a Washington Post team that analyzed killings by police officers . 

Read Jason Cherkis' award-winning piece here .