Rise in prescription drug overdose hitting unlikely community

At age 52, no one would think a mother and wife, with a roof over her head, would die from a drug overdose. However, after hurting her shoulder more than a decade ago, Myrtle Bailey died of a hydrocodone overdose. Unfortunately for her and many others, doctors are treating symptoms instead of actual problems. “Bailey was one of six people in Madison County to die of drug overdoses within a four-day span in June 2010. She was also one of 62 to die of a drug or alcohol overdose last year in the county, by far the county’s highest total in the past 10 years.”

Kevin Bersett and Jacqueline Lee of the Belleville News-Democrat take a deeper look, using computer-assisted reporting tools, into why the East  St. Louis police are claiming heroin is to blame for the rise in deaths.