'Deaths of despair' on the rise in Virginia

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — In the months since her baby sister overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl, Rene Myers has been sickened by the reaction from so-called friends.

They want to write off Dorothy Nicole Ries as nothing more than a druggie who died at her own hands. They suggest the 25-year-old Nicole, known as "Coley" to her brother and three sisters, was a drain on society and, really, what did it matter if one more junkie overdosed?

That kind of thinking made Myers reach out to The Free Lance-Star. She wanted to put a face on the opioid crisis, an epidemic that claims 115 Americans e...

 

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