In this issue, we investigate how the tentacles of a national opioid and heroin epidemic have reached the rural West. To help tell that story, Assistant Editor Paige Blankenbuehler reported in tiny Craig, Colorado, where she uncovered a private practice that spurred a complicated drug crisis that continues to outpace the available resources for addicts, the health care community and law enforcement.

An addict burns heroin in a spoon. The narcotic can be smoked, sniffed, or dissolved in water and then heated and injected, producing sensations of warmth, calmness and drowsiness at a price cheaper than prescription painkillers. Credit: Universal Images Group N.A. LLC / Alamy Stock Photo

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A cautionary tale

Jonathan Thompson’s Jan. 23 article on the Bears Ears National Monument, in a paragraph concerning Utah lawmakers’ pledge to urge Trump to overturn the designation, states that “no president has ever tried to abolish a monument; it’s not clear that it’s even possible.” Right, insofar as current presidential powers. But Congress can, and has, delisted…

by Chris Williams

A hidden epidemic

America is in the grips of a drug epidemic, and no community is immune. The abuse of opioid painkillers, which can lead to heroin use, is to blame. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control are hardly encouraging. Overdose deaths nationwide tripled between 1999 and 2014; in 2014, 61 percent of more than…

by Brian Calvert

Words matter

I write in response to Elizabeth Shogren’s excellent article on regulations (“As Trump takes power, the White House targets regulations,” HCN, 1/19/17). I highly recommend that your writers understand and follow the advice of George Lakoff, who studies human behavior. Even for those capable of critical thinking, 90 percent of our processing is below our…

by Anne Wilson

Dig deeper into DAPL

I appreciate learning about the perspectives and feelings of people participating in the “Showdown at Standing Rock” (HCN, 1/23/17). Much of this has been lacking in the news. What I would find useful now are investigative articles that address a number of questions: • I do wonder how this pipeline and its route came about,…

by Larry N. Smith

Hit  ’em where it hurts

The article “Bears Ears National Monument is a go” shows how, even with compromise, Utah lawmakers continue to attack this newest national monument using, as President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway would say, “alternative facts” (HCN, 01/23/17). There is one potentially strong economic benefit behind the monument that wasn’t mentioned in the article. The Outdoor…

by Jon Wesley Sering