On a Monday night in the town next to mine, about 100 people—a big turnout for Greene County, whose population is only 47,000—crowded into a movie theater to watch a documentary called Smacked! It’s about opioid addiction in rural areas, focusing in particular on two counties west of here.
Most of the attendees, it was clear from the discussion after the film, knew someone—often a family member—who was addicted or who had died of an overdose. They were angry, bewildered, and at a loss as to what to do. When a mother who had featured in the film said during the discussion that she blamed herself for her son’s overdose death, I felt the sense of shared heartbreak throughout the hall.
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