It was a broad call to action, but one that failed to allocate much-needed new funding to address the crisis. 26, which means federal agencies have 90 days to redirect existing resources to fighting the epidemic. In response to the growing crisis, President Trump declared a national public-health emergency on Oct. In big cities and small towns alike, police officers are responding to more and more overdose calls, limiting their ability to address other crimes.Įven many firefighters now are expected to use naloxone, and are being called out to revive addicts who overdose so frequently they know them by name. Indeed, in some parts of the country, bodies pile up so quickly that medical examiners have resorted to storing the overflow in makeshift freezers when their morgues are full. In a September study on mortality in the U.S., researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that opioids contributed to a decline in the life expectancy of Americans from 2000 to 2015. It is an epidemic without boundaries, touching every corner of the nation, every income group and virtually every age, including a baby born in opioid withdrawal every 25 minutes. The toll, as the White House commission on the crisis put it, is the equivalent of the 9/11 attacks every three weeks. In 2015, drug overdoses claimed more lives than car accidents and gun violence and rivaled the HIV/AIDS crisis at its peak. Since 1999, the rate of fatal prescription opioid overdoses in the U.S. Every day across the country, nearly 100 people die from overdoses of opioids, powerful narcotic painkillers that attach to cells and dull pain, slow breathing and bring on an overall sense of calm and satisfaction. The video of Ron and Carla’s overdose is part of a grim genre that has emerged alongside the deadliest drug crisis in American history. It’ll take you places you can’t imagine.”
“That’s what drugs and alcohol will do to you. Ronald Hiers, who was addicted to opioids and heroin for nearly 50 years, at his home in Southaven, Miss., in October 2017. “But I also thought, There’s more for me.” Ron says he injected Carla’s portion of the heroin and then took what was left of his monthly prescription of Xanax pills, about four dozen of them, hoping they would put an end to more than four decades of pain and addiction. “I felt sorry for her,” Ron says in his first extended interview, almost one year after the video was shot. They were taken to the hospital, and then police took Carla to jail for outstanding charges of petty theft. It took a dose of naloxone-a drug that paramedics, emergency medical technicians and even law-enforcement officers have started carrying for the ballooning number of narcotic overdoses they see-to revive Ron and Carla. Then they headed for the bus stop and passed out. They had just picked up heroin and, too impatient to wait until they got home, walked into the bathroom of a nearby Walgreens and shot up. The man in the video is named Ron Hiers and the woman is his wife Carla. The footage quickly went viral and was viewed millions of times. The post went viral and was viewed by over 3 million people and made national headlines. A still from a Facebook Live video filmed by Courtland Garner.