Retraining Workers for New Jobs and New Lives After Prison and Addiction
“The common narrative tells a story of a region, long dependent on coal, that suffered economically when the demand dropped. That in turn, it is said, spurred a drug crisis among the jobless. But a more nuanced and more accurate view is that the decline in coal production and accompanying job loss coincided with something much more devastating: a spike in prescriptions for opioids, among other pain medications, as well as an increase in substance abuse generally.”