RALEIGH, N.C. — More than 4,300 North Carolinians died from overdoses in 2022.
That trend continues going up, devastating entire communities. To understand the gravity of how many lives are lost, you can look at the problem by population.
Imagine that within a year, everyone living in the town of Mount Olive just disappeared. Or if over 20 years, it happened with a town the size of Fuquay-Varina.
That’s what's happening across the state. We've seen 4,300 lives lost in a year or 37,000 over about 20 years due to the opioid crisis.
"It’s heartbreaking," said Freida MacDonald. "I never get used to it."
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