“I was literally in love with OxyContin. At first it was fun to get messed up, and then I had to,” said Emerson, who lives off a muddy dirt road. “I didn’t have any sober friends. You surround yourself with users. You don’t want to feel out of place, I guess.”

But at that price, a habit that cost hundreds of dollars a day became difficult to sustain. And then pharmaceutical manufacturers repackaged drugs such as OxyContin, which users previously had crushed into powder and snorted, to make them harder to abuse.

Enter heroin, an opiate with a vastly cheaper price….

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/01/19/amid-pastoral-splendor-heroin-gains-deadly-foothold-vermont/wNgLvM7CBhltWJIhoWNUzM/story.html