America's Other Epidemic: The Opioid Crisis Is Worse Than 4 Years Ago
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2020
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
NPR's Brian Mann reports on the surge of synthetic fentanyl, especially in the western U.S.
And NPR's Emily Feng unveils a web of Chinese sellers exporting individual chemical components to produce fentanyl.
In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 2016, during America's last presidential election season, |
| 0:05.0 | opioid overdoses were surging. |
| 0:09.0 | We love New Hampshire. |
| 0:10.0 | Especially in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. |
| 0:15.0 | So as I said, when I won the New Hampshire primary, |
| 0:18.0 | I promised the people of New Hampshire that we would stop drugs |
| 0:21.0 | from pouring into your community, and I guarantee you we will. |
| 0:25.0 | You will be so proud of your president. |
| 0:27.0 | You will be so proud of your community. |
| 0:30.0 | That was a month before Donald Trump won the 2016 election. |
| 0:34.0 | You will be so proud of it. |
| 0:36.0 | And almost a full year later, as president, |
| 0:39.0 | Trump declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency. |
| 0:44.0 | No part of our society, not young or old, |
| 0:47.0 | rich or poor, urban or rural, has been spared this plague of drug addiction. |
| 0:53.0 | That year 42,000 Americans died of overdoses linked to heroin, fentanyl, |
| 0:58.0 | and prescription opioids. |
| 1:00.0 | We will defeat this opioid epidemic. |
| 1:04.0 | It will be defeated. |
| 1:06.0 | The following year, there was a slight dip in overdoses, but since then... |
| 1:10.0 | All the progress that we made has now been reversed. |
| 1:14.0 | And this is even before the pandemic. |
... |
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