Director Adam Meeks came across a rare piece of good news in the hellscape that is the opioid epidemic: the Ohio drug courts that help to rehabilitate addicts through a system of non-judgmental support and a strict, yet not unforgiving, schedule. His feature debut Union County an extension of a 2020 short shows the positive outcome of treating addiction as a problem to be solved, rather than a lifestyle choice to be demonised.
From 2003 to 2022, annual overdose deaths in the United States rose from less than 26,000 to nearly 108,000-becoming the leading nonmedical cause of death, surpassing car accidents and gun violence combined. In Canada, overdose deaths increased almost tenfold in the same period. In both countries, the surge in deaths was supercharged by "synthetic" opioids such as fentanyl, the ultra-potent, lab-made narcotic that has come to dominate the supply of hard drugs.
When Tosha Alexander was 17, her world was unraveling. Her father had died, and with her mother unable to keep their lives together, foster care became the next stop in her journey. Then her history teacher, Brea Kitts, did something extraordinary. Without hesitation, Kitts - who was a single mother - stepped in and took legal custody. She gave Alexander not just a roof over her head, but a home, a sense of safety, and a chance to finish high school with her friends.
Democrat Mikie Sherrill said Ciattarelli killed tens of thousands of people during a tense Wednesday night debate. Ciattarelli also accused his opponent of breaking the law to access his records while Sherrill claimed he'd profited from publishing misinformation to the public. He was paid to develop an app so that people who are addicted could more easily get access to opioids; and so, as he made millions, as these opioid companies made billions, tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died, Sherrill said during the debate.
While Walter provides history and plenty of politics and policy detail, she does it through individual stories: a doctor who bends the rules as he tries to fight the system, a White middle-class young man who gets treatment in lieu of jail time but then learns that the facility which forces him into hard labor may be even worse, and a Black woman who gets no such option and is sent to jail.
