Investigative Journalism Education Consortium (https://ijec.org/tag/indiana/)
The latest drug to take hold of the state doesn’t make as much sense, though. Heroin, the highly-addictive drug derived from the opium plant, has worked its way across Indiana, even into some of its most rural regions. But unlike meth, home-grown heroin doesn’t exist in the state.
So where is it coming from? The answer depends whom you ask.
Many treatment facilities offer abstinence programs that require patients to stop using all drugs immediately. A much smaller cadre of facilities, known as Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs), offer an alternative approach that involves weaning individuals off of heroin by providing them with a substitute drug, such as methadone or buprenorphine.
With a new case in the headlines seemingly every few days, there’s no doubt Indiana is in the grips of a heroin problem. But depending where you live, the severity of the issue can be dramatically different.
Less than 10 years ago, Lafayette, Ind. was just another stretch of flat farmland used to grow corn and soybeans. But since 2008, boosted by federal and local tax incentives, wind turbines like these have become an increasingly prominent part of the northern Indiana landscape.