She used to be the lady next door. Now she’s strung out on Rio Grande Street.
Old stereotypes of drug addicts are fading away as the pharmaceutical painkiller epidemic sweeps across all social strata in concert with sharply increased heroin trafficking.
In 2014, almost a third of Utah adults, aged 18 and over, had been prescribed an opioid painkiller over a 12-month period, according to the Utah Department of Health. Data reveal that some 80 percent of heroin users started with prescription opioids.
These are stories of four Utahns who describe how they came to be residents of or frequent visitors to an area of Salt Lake City that has become synonymous with drugs and homelessness.