This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies, and today for Terry Gross. The Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention estimates that more than a million Americans have died from drug overdose since 1996.

Our guest journalist Beth Maisie writes that addiction has become the number one destroyer of families

in our time. Her last book, Dope Sick, which was adapted into an eight-part series on Hulu,

detailed the dimensions and impact of the opioid crisis, particularly on rural communities.

Maisie returns to the subject in a new book, noting that given the scale of the opioid epidemic,

the nation is sorely lacking in effective treatment programs, often due to the indifference of state

and local officials, or their hostility to treating people they regard as parasites or criminals.

Maisie's new book highlights the work of citizens who've made it their business to help those

struggling with addiction, sometimes working with small nonprofits or churches, sometimes driving

their own cars to drug houses or makeshift encampments to offer clean needles, hepatitis,

testing and treatment, medications that ease withdrawal symptoms, and plenty of empathy and

understanding. Also with us today is one of those activists who's had a meaningful impact.

Reverend Michelle Mathis is co-founder of Olive Branch Ministry, which now provides services to

people in nine counties in North Carolina. She's also a program coordinator for the

Gaston County North Carolina opioid overdose response team. She serves on the board of several

statewide organizations, including the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition,

and she's the advisory board chair of the National Faith in Harm Reduction Movement.

She's also an important character in Maisie's new book, which also chronicles ongoing lawsuits

and protests, targeting the owners of Purdue Farma. That book is called Raising Lazarus,

Hope, Justice and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis. Well, Beth Maisie, Michelle Mathis,

welcome to Fresh Air. Beth, I thought we'd begin with you to remind us of kind of where this

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