National Heroin Epidemic - Launched July 17, 2018 - Full multimedia experience: audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - With the best of intentions and the worst of plans, Florida's long-delayed 2011 crackdown on pill mills ignited the heroin crisis, not just in Florida, but across more than half the country, a Palm Beach Post investigation found. When Florida finally turned off the free-flowing oxycodone spigot, drug users in states once fed by Florida oxycodone did exactly what users in Palm Beach County and Florida did: They turned to heroin. To backtrack the origins of the heroin crisis, The Post layered different data sets atop one another, combing through federal, state and local death, treatment and hospital records spanning 50 states and 15 years. Reporters drove the ''Oxy Express'' highways from Palm Beach County to Appalachia, the route users and dealers once traveled to load up on tens of thousands of oxycodone pills at a clip. They unearthed decades-old documents and sought out emergency room doctors and former addicts, small-town mayors and cops, mothers of overdose victims, epidemiologists and forensic experts. The aftershocks could be felt in Huntington, W.Va., where police crime analysts found the crisis pivoted on a single day: A prescription drug epidemic before June 3, 2011, the day Gov. Rick Scott signed off on Florida crackdown laws, and a heroin epidemic immediately after. It was felt in Greenup County, Ky., where, when the flood of Florida oxycodone slowed to a trickle, Detroit gangs selling heroin moved in. In Huntington,'I can remember the day that we stopped seeing them,' said oxycodone addict-turned-drug counselor Will Lockwood of the once-steady flow of Florida pills. 'And the very next day, heroin showed up.'
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July 25, 2016 - Lee County, Virginia, U.S. - View of rolling hills and green trees of Lee County, Va.
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July 25, 2016 - Pennington Gap, Virginia, U.S. - ROBERT BREWER, Pennington Gap, Va., talks about his addiction to opiates that spiraled out of control after a doctor overprescribed painkillers to him after a car accident.
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July 25, 2016 - Pennington Gap, Virginia, U.S. - An ambulance motors past a Pennington Gap city limits sign in Lee County, Va.
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July 28, 2016 - Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. - 'Hopelessness is the disease,' said Huntington Mayor Steve Williams. The addiction to drugs are a coverup to the lack of jobs and lack of hope for the people in this area, he said. A weather-worn home in Huntington W. Va.
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July 27, 2016 - Greenup, Kentucky, U.S. - RACHAEL (no last name given) has been using heroin for five years, she said. She pushes heroin from a syringe inside a Huntington, W. Va., gas station restroom.
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July 27, 2016 - Greenup, Kentucky, U.S. - RACHAEL (no last name given) has been using heroin for five years, she said. She pushes heroin from a syringe inside a Huntington, W. Va., gas station restroom.
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July 25, 2016 - Pennington Gap, Virginia, U.S. - DUSTIN MORELOCK in Pennington Gap, Va. Dustin has been using Suboxone to treat an OxyContin addiction.
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July 28, 2016 - Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. - Marcum Terrace in Huntington W. Va., is often a site of shootings and drug deals in the city. Detroit-based drug dealers set up operations at this complex to push heroin out on the streets.
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July 28, 2016 - Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. - JASON GILLISPIE, 30, has had family struggle with opiate abuse and addiction.
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July 27, 2016 - Greenup, Kentucky, U.S. - Greenup County Sheriff KEITH COOPER often makes multi-thousand dollar undercover drug buys to build prosecutorial cases against drug dealers in his jurisdiction.
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July 26, 2016 - Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. - Former Huntington Police Department Chief (retired) JIM JOHNSON, KENNETH BURNER, Deputy Director of Appalachia region of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and Huntington Deputy Fire Chief JAN RADER, R.N., are coordinating their efforts to combat the entrenched heroin problems in the city.
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July 26, 2016 - Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. - Huntington Mayor STEVE WILLIAMS' efforts to spur a renaissance in his city are plagued by heroin-related crimes and social problems. His office set up a drug task force that has had successes with unconventional methods.
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July 26, 2016 - Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. - WILL LOCKWOOD, Director of Operations at Lifehouse, talks about his opiate addiction and how pills traveled from Florida to Appalachia.
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July 27, 2016 - Greenup, Kentucky, U.S. - The Cabell-Huntington Health Department in Huntington, W. Va., offers a needle exchange program for opiate users. Health officials are trying to ease the increasing cases of Hepatitis C infections and other medical problems tied to intravenous drug use. Cotton balls, clean water, syringes, cooking tray and bleach are provided without questions to users who come to the department.
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July 28, 2016 - Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. - JASON GILLISPIE, 30, has had family struggle with opiate abuse and addiction.
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July 25, 2016 - Lee County, Virginia, U.S. - Green rolling hills of Lee County, Va., seen from the Daniel Boone Trail looking north, is home to tiny Pennington Gap, the county's most populous town with fewer than 2,000 residents.
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July 26, 2016 - Huntington, West Virginia, U.S. - Matt Meadows, Huntington, W. Va., serves as a probation officer for the Cabell-Huntington Adult Drug Court and he creates rings made from sobriety medallions for program participant completion.
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July 25, 2016 - Pennington Gap, Virginia, U.S. - DUSTIN MORELOCK in Pennington Gap, Va. Dustin has been using Suboxone to treat an OxyContin addiction.
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