hero. two old men on a beach. ♪ singing la, la, la, la, la, this is where i bought my first bag of heroin. it was 1980, i was 24 years old. but in a lot of ways, my whole life up to that point was leading to this address. western massachusetts, the unlikely new frontier of america's war on drugs where heroin has become an exploding problem that's begun to touch nearly every family. ♪ i took a walk through this beautiful world ♪ ♪ felt the cool rain on my

shoulder ♪ ♪ found something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha, la, la, la, la ♪ sha, la, la, la, la ♪ sha, la, la, la, la, la ♪ sha, la, la, la, la, la ♪ there's nothing like the north atlantic. it's majestic. i love the beach. pretty much had my first everything on a beach. you name it, first time i did it, beach. i was miserable in love, happy in love, alternately, as only a

17-year-old could be. this is where i lived. very happy summer in the early '70s, and that was my room on the left. it's an amazing spot if you think about it, a bunch of knuckle heads working as dish washers, pizza servers. we could work on a beach like this. happier, stupider times. you know, i can still hear the play list, the brothers johnson. if you put on marvin gaye right now, i'd burst into tears. what do you do? you're young, you go to the beach, you know, you get laid, and you get high. it was here, all the way out at the tip of cape cod, provincetown, massachusetts, where the pilgrims first landed. and it was where i first landed. 1972, washed in a town with a head full of orange sunshine and a few friends. provincetown, a wonderland of tolerance, long-time tradition

of accepting artists, writers, the badly behaved, the gay, the different. it was paradise. the joy that can only come with an absolute certainty that you're invincible. that none of the choices that you make will have any repercussions or any effect on your later life. we didn't think about those things. i don't even know what i thought i was going to be. at that point, i certainly didn't think i was going to be a cook. i don't know what i thought i was going to be. i was just, you know, hanging out in a beautiful place. >> a golden time, i look back on those fuzzy memories and they seem golden anyway. oh, there's john waters. first love, and there's me. this guy, johnny yingling was sort of a central figure in all of our lives. >> well, my name is john yingling, and this is spiritist pizza, its been here since 1971.

this town is everything to me. provincetown is a really special place where people can be themselves. we all did drugs, acted young and crazy, and tony was, he was probably a little wilder than some and not as wild as others. but he was always the guy who i always liked. >> and you let me sleep on top of the walk-in. >> i remember that. >> i cannot tell you how frequently i dream about the pizza. i'm walking down commercial street, and i'm sort of dimly aware that spiritist has moved and there's a sense of dislocation and a loss as i stumble around this sort of provincetown dreamscape of 40 years ago. i was still here and living in hope. unbelievable. >> many of the old places in p-town are gone. but the lobster pot is still going strong, all these years later. and still has what i want and need. the essentials. my friends worked in the kitchen here, starting the tradition

among my set that cooking work was noble toil. at that point i never intended a career as a chef. >> it's great to be a cook. >> i was getting to that. yes. >> this is homemade portuguese kale soup, made on the premises. >> its been a long time, thank you. >> enjoy. >> portuguese soup, a p-town version and just what i remembered. kale, fiery red chorizo, kidney beans, potatoes. oh, i missed you. i missed you bad. and that was precisely what i loved about the food here. the portuguese thing, dishes like this stuffed cod crusted with ground portuguese sausage, bread crumbs, stuffed with scallop and crab. some sherry, red sauce. i hadn't been working for a while, i was a deadbeat. i mean, i was just just scarfing off everybody else. and he comes from work and says our dishwasher didn't show up today. you are our new dishwasher. and i said, oh, really.

and the next day i put on the apron and didn't take it off for 30 years. i'd wake up, all of us go to the beach, hang out on the beach until like 2:00, 3:00. >> yeah, it was fun. >> roll into work. work all night. drinking, getting high, drilling out food. you have all the food you wanted, all the liquor you wanted. >> all the sex you wanted. >> all the sex you wanted. >> it was true, it was fun. we had a good time. >> and yet you still were an essential part of the economy. >> it was a lot of fun, believe me, i remember. >> the flagship, it's where my cooking career started. where i started washing dishes, where i started have pretensions of culinary grandeur. >> it was a good gig for anybody. who else lived that /* like that during that time. you had to be in a band, here we were, we were dishwashers. >> yeah, you get older and more sense and you realize that like, you know, you got to like pace yourself a little bit. >> otherwise, we still wouldn't be here. well, you know, many of our friends from those days didn't make it. >> many of my friends are dead, yeah.

[ applause ] >> as you were. >> keep drinking, keep drinking. thank you. >> thank you, tony. >> this place has been here forever. >> that used to be the back room. >> back room's still there. >> see, it's all falling into place again. >> yeah. it's not that much different. >> it's early spring now, but come memorial day, it gets crazy around here and doesn't stop until labor day. provincetown was always gay-friendly, in my time and way, way before my time. and this place, the atlantic house known always and forever by locals and visitors alike as the "a" house is america's oldest operating gay bar. everybody has come through these doors, so to speak. most notably, a naked and frolicking tennessee williams. >> no. that's too bad. >> everybody got seasick. and started tripping. now that it's even they all save cocktails so i can get my sea

legs back. >> oh, really? >> yeah. >> april owns the joint now. taken over for her father, the legendary reggie, a forward-thinking dude if there ever was one. >> it was built in 1798. >> how long in the family? in your family? >> over 75 years. my father during that time, he had billie holiday appeared, he had ella fitzgerald, all the big names of jazz. >> how has town changed? has it changed? >> i think tremendously. gay lifestyle is much more accepted. >> okay, 1972, my feeling was that this was a gay town and that i was here at the pleasure of, you know, somebody else. which is sort of the opposite of everywhere outside of here at that time. >> oh, yes. >> this was a largely catholic, portuguese, conservative community fishing town, but it was also known as hell town. >> hell town, this is where the puritans sent their rejects. >> yeah. >> provincetown had the mixture

really of the bohemian people and the fishermen, pirates, writers, drunks, all that. >> the lifestyle outside of mainstream was welcome here pretty much. >> whatever floats your boat. you know. it's all good. ♪ ♪ oh how i wish we could both go back to that summer ♪

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over a century ago, provincetown was a hard-working fishing village with multigenerational families of fishermen. >> my name's bo gribbon. my father fished, and i was pretty much raised here my whole life. where i'm from. this is who i am. but it used to be like two out

of three families in this town, this community, were fishing families. most of them are now gone. and we're really like a minority. used to be a fishing community with a homosexual problem. now it's a homosexual community with a fishing problem. >> the first portuguese fishermen arrived here in 1840. the main families created a community built around fishing, and this town lived off that industry well into the 20th century. it persisted even when i was here, keeping up the blessing of old catholic fishing traditions like the fleet. these days however, there are fewer and fewer boats to bless. >> my name's scott roe, i'm a commercial fishermen, sea scallops, fourth generation. it was cool back then, started when i was a. 70 and 80 boats here, five or six feet now, now it's just down to like seven or eight. now i'm proud of my heritage and i would never do anything else. this is my office, man, look at it.

i'm going to do this until i can't move anymore. >> we were all on the town like clockwork, 2:30, 3:00 in the morning, it's quiet, the town's been ripped up all night long. we come down here, hit the water. what could be better? >> good time to be here, and nice weather today. >> yeah, pretty nice day. >> a little breezy. >> might be a little nautical. a little bit. >> i'm sure i'll be fine, i've watched "the deadliest catch." >> are you ready? >> i'm ready. >> time to press the fun button. ♪ >> clear. all clear. used to be this was the best thing in the world. we were like the greatest thing about fishing, you were kind of like a cowboy, like a pioneer, you could go out, and as hard as you could push, competition was welcomed. we were fiercely independent. independence is like little by

little by little taken away. >> is there a limited number of stuff out there? >> well, there's a total allowable catch, we're on a allowable catch, we're on a 600-pound trip right now. >> and the payout ain't much. do the math, a good day brings in say 9,000 bucks, from that 9,000, take away 3,000 for the lease, 1,000 for fuel, and split the remainder amongst the crew. and on top of that, fishing is a just a crap shoot. many days, there's simply nothing to catch. >> so why the [ bleep ] are you doing this? >> we love to do it. like for us we say it all turns to it when we come around the break water. once we get out to there, and we feel like we're at home. >> like i said, it ain't easy. today, according to bo, scott, and zeb, this was just a little breeze.

>> how rough does it have to be when you look out and say i'm not going out today? >> it starts like blowing like 30, 35. >> we like days like this because the competition stays in. >> really? >> my dad used to say when you're dry, you're not making any money. we're fishing. >> so it's not going to snap until flying back and cut your head off. >> not too often. no. >> i hate when that happens. >> yeah, it's a bummer. the summer, you'd be able to smell the coconut, another big trick we have. because now the guys decided they like this part of the beach, right. so they're all out here, nude sunbathing. so i pick up my glasses and i tell them, wow, look at the breasts on that girl. and you give it to them and they see something they weren't expecting to see. works every time though.

>> i can't believe you didn't cook nothing. >> i can't believe it, man. >> what? >> got anthony bourdain on deck and we don't have nothing to eat. >> the best part of it, the anticipation to see what's in there. >> oh, every time. i'm like i just can't wait. you're like looking and you're like what's going to be in there? what's going to be in there? sometimes it's a disappointment. but a lot of times it's disappointment. >> how many did we get? >> a few. >> is there? >> all right, we're out. that's why it's fishing and not catching. >> yep. >> it'll taste all that much better. ♪ >> this place was, has been here forever when i rolled into town.

how long has that place been open? >> for a long time. >> i think this is the only place in town that's unchanged. >> yeah, how long do i have to drink here to get my face up there? 40 years? >> couple more years. >> back when i worked in town for fishermen, there was the folks cookies, tap room, and this place, the old colony. of the three, it's the only one left. >> yeah, baby. >> oh wait a minute, i recognize these. you guys eat scallops. >> yeah. >> as brawny, hard-working men of the sea, we deserve these beers, these finest of all oysters, the well fleets. >> wow. >> finest oysters known to man. >> these are fantastic. wow, what a treat. is there going to be a next generation of fishermen in the family? what happens after you guys? >> the next generation of fishermen that are like coming on to our boats, they're opportunists for the income, it's not for the love of being on the water. >> this is the end. the fishing is going to die.

but, of course, it's 40 years later almost. that was the sodom and gomorrah by the sea over there, a big candy store for a horny, stupid, 17-year-old with a taste for chemicals. you know, i was an angry young man. what the hell was so i angry about? it came as a rude surprise when i turned 30 because i figured i'd be dead by then. i was still quite some time away from my first bag of heroin, but, you know, in a lot of ways it was a foregone conclusion, my whole life was leading up to that point. to my first bag of dope.

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♪

♪ i left provincetown with restaurant experience, a suntan, and an ever deepening relationship with recreational drugs. i went to culinary school, then to new york city, and never returned. today, however, i'm staying in massachusetts, heading over to the western part of the state, one of the most beautiful areas of the country, the gorgeous mill towns, victorian houses, deeply felt famously upright and new england values, norman rockwell america where something really inexplicable and unexpected has happened. >> new england is a new mecca for heroin use. >> emergency room admissions, law enforcement areas dealing with crimes being committed that never happened before. >> detectives are working around the clock. dealers are making a killing. >> not new york or baltimore or l.a. or chicago, but rural towns like this one are now statistically ground zero for the heroin epidemic. what the hell happened?

>> the next couple years, if this heroin use trend continues to grow, it may be beyond getting a handle on. i'm a detective with the greenfield police department here, and my focus is undercover and narcotic investigations. >> this is a well-known area to us and very active. >> heroin use in the past year, its just increased to a level i've never seen any other drug come into an area. people are all going to be affected. it hasn't topped out yet. >> someone you've known, someone you went to school with, someone you work with. >> so, sunny crocket gets a ferrari. what's wrong with this picture? >> tried the lexus but they said no way. >> it's been reported in the national papers there's been explosion of heroin use, heroin-related crimes,

overdoses, how does that happen? >> i think once this area realized we had a heroin problem, we were already behind it trying to play catch-up. we are on the 91 corridor. route 91 has been dubbed the heroin highway at this point. it's a widely used road to go north and south. there's opportunists here and for low money input, they're getting a high profit. that's the typical heroin packages. bundles of ten, 50 bags here. >> 60 to 80 bucks for ten. >> they can charge what they want. it's supply and demand. >> one dose for most people? >> multiple bags, anywhere from three to five backs at a same time. up to 30 bags a day. and the current economics of the town, i am the only one assigned to the narcotics position. >> how many heroin addicts are walking the streets of greenfield right now? >> i'm going to say we're in the high hundreds. >> wow. >> we're in the high hundreds. >> high hundreds. >> it's hitting every age group,

economic household, it's out there. >> we don't have crips and bloods taking over motel rooms, the person selling you dope more likely to be familiar than a stranger? >> we're going to meet a pass distributor i've known for several years. >> we meet carmen, as we'll call her, a powerful local heroin dealer turned paid confidential police informant out in the woods. >> how'd you get into the business initially? >> i needed the money. i needed to support my family. couldn't get a job. >> how easy was it to get into the dope business? >> not hard at all because it's cheap. >> was there money in it? >> oh, hell, yeah. yeah, oh, yeah. >> it's like mayberry out here from looking around. who's using heroin now? i mean -- >> kids. >> kids. >> kids. >> today's heroin epidemic is different than the one that raged through america in the 1970s in a few significant ways.

back then, heroin was mostly seen as a poor people problem, somebody else's problem. the sort of thing that musicians and criminals got into, marginal people, far from the white main streets of mayberry, usa. what those people did to themselves, well, it was unfortunate, but not our problem. until somebody broke into your house. today, it's absolutely the reverse. the new addicts are almost entirely white, middle class, and from towns and areas like this. how do you think you make it better? >> you don't. >> whoa. you don't? >> no, there's going to be more robberies, there's going to be more killings. take one person off the street here, two more come in. >> at peak how many customers do you have? >> practically all of greenfield. >> what happened? how did the kid next door, along with mom, pop, and grandma too become users of hard-core illegal narcotic drugs, the

worst drug with the worst reputation? ♪ ♪ i'll take you there well, maybe start here. >> once you found the right doctor and have told him or her about your pain, don't be afraid to take what they give you. often it will be an opioid medication. >> here's a 1996 promotional video from the fine folks at perdue pharmaceuticals. sent around to doctors, it encouraged them to prescribe the latest, newest, most wonderful drug for long-term pain management, oxycontin. >> some patients may be afraid of taking opiods because they're perceived as too strong or addictive. but that is far from actual fact. less than 1% of patients taking opioids actually become

addicted. >> sales initially and falsely proclaimed as not addictive, absolutely skyrocketed from $45 million in 1996 to 3.1 billion in 2010. that same year, perdue tweaked the way that we're making oxy in an attempt to, they said, limit its addictive qualities. finally the government and law enforcement took a harsh look at the drug and it became much harder to get legally which sucked for the thousands and thousands who by now had a serious habit. >> i am ruth, a family physician in greenfield, massachusetts, and i grew up here. my dad was actually a small town doctor out here. i'm a total generalist, but for the last four, four and a half years, a larger part of my practice has been focused on addiction to opiates. >> i got put on pain medication. then when they started disappearing, everybody else is doing it. >> the heroin? >> yeah. i can get a bag of heroin easier than i can get a joint. >> once they start, they just slip down that rabbit hole and, you know, maybe they make it out. that's our goal is to get them out and to live healthy again.

we've really in our own way created this mess that we're in now. ♪ >> in downtown greenfield, the people's pint, an eco-conscious, local pub that brews its own beer, uses only farm fresh ingredients and composts its own leftovers. it is where i meet up with dr. poti for dinner. i guess my first question is who is doing dope? >> everybody starts with the pills. there's nobody that goes from marijuana to heroin. there's an in between step. always pills, it's pills that people get from their doctor. from me. particularly the young people. had an injury, a sports-related injury, had their wisdom teeth out, and they felt awesome on the drug, and they were like how can i get more of that? after three to six months of looking for more, they couldn't find it, and then they jumped. >> is it the big pharmaceuticals fault? doctors fault?

who /* who made a mistake here sn >> it's complicated. i'm not going to say there's one entity here that's responsible, but there was a lot of money to be made by promoting the treatment of pain to the highest level. big pharma made a lot of money on this. and i was taught in residency, you give people as much pain medicine as they need. you get them out of pain, we'll judge your hospital, emergency room based on your pain scores. that's how we were taught. and we were also told that they're not all that addictive. we started handing out pills like crazy. 100 million americans have chronic pain. so, we did a disservice as doctors and as prescribers like we took data that was [ bleep ], and then we went forth with it and said prescribe it to everyone, they won't get addicted. we know what we are doing. guess what, we didn't know what we were doing.

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♪ a few miles down the road from greenfield is shellburn falls, the good old days that everybody used to talk about when i was a kid. sundays, church and picnics. saturday nights, sox games, beer, and bowling. the shellburn falls bowling alley is where time seems anyway to have stopped.

first opened in 1906, this is the second oldest bowling alley in america. dedicated to old school new england-style candle pin bowling. the holy rollers, a crowd of septuagenarians who grew up in shellburn and plan this is a reasonable expectation to kick my [ bleep ]. they've been playing here since the '50s. >> i was never allowed to come near the bowling alley. this was my aunt did not think this was a good idea. >> oh, man. it's a tiny little ball. this looks really hard. [ cheering ] >> it's very different, shellburn falls. i grew up here. very different. people don't know each other as well as everyone used to know each other. >> when i grew up in greenfield,

everybody had jobs. i worked from the time i was 13. if i had to go back there, now, i don't believe in drugs, i don't have anything to do with them, but what choice would i have? stand on the corner, i would probably get into a business. what's a good business? well-paying business? i'm sorry. that's where we are. ♪ >> yes, it used to be a very different world towns like this one. and there were many. but like everywhere else, it seems the mills, the factories closed down, and with them a certain kind of social contract with the people who worked there. >> my name is ed gregory, originally from terrence falls, born and brought up here, born in 1945. my father was an employee of the mill, as was my grandfather. >> during the hay day, there were three paper mills, cotton mill, a silk mill, a foundry, a beehive of activity here. >> back then, a company town like this, the company actually

took care of you. they built and provided homes for their employees. schools, the river provided energy. the company provided nearly everything else. >> the hayday is gone. people are definitely struggling to find work. the town just kind of died during the '80s. >> when the folks came to work, they were immigrants -- >> attracted by the manufacturing here. >> correct. made it a possibility of owning a home in a real decent part of the county here. ♪ >> so my father was here, a millwright, a millwright's job is a jack of all trades if you will. if there was something to be repaired. >> you could work in a mill and live in a nice home, send your kids to school, make a living all on a mill salary. >> you bet. >> it's unthinkable now. what happened to the business? >> things are going to other countries, but not coming back to the united states. >> this time it's redundant?

>> correct. >> again and again all over the country, i keep running into situations like this where industry has died or fled or simply relocated. i meet people like charles garbel, hometown heroes who for some reason though they could go anywhere, take their skills, and return to where they grew up. shady glenn diner, today's special, a tribute to the old european immigrant culture of the area, the new england boiled dinner. so i hear rumors of corned beef and cabbage, is that right? >> yeah, we do -- every week we do a corned beef and cabbage dinner. >> below slowly cooked corn beef, boiled potatoes and steamed cabbage. >> that's a beast, awesome, thank you. >> how long have you been here? >> two years. >> are you from the area? >> i grew up here, been coming through here since a kid. went threw a few owners then came up for sale and decided to give it a shot. >> generally speaking, who are your customers?

>> most are retirees, they've been coming since they were 30. >> this, you don't see so much anymore. dino-era homemade pies and lots of them. all baked on premises. raspberry cream pie for me, thank you. this is not something we see a lot of. old school pie like that and this number of them. >> everything is made here and all the original recipes from the '60s. the index cards are so old, they're all faded yellow. >> this is exotic for me. >> really? >> oh, yeah. how's business? >> it's getting better. the drug problem has gotten rampant. took over may 1st, 2012, and by the end of that year i was broken into four times. it wasn't just me, it was multiple businesses time after time. i came in one morning to open up, and i actually had a guy in front of the register and he got up, pulled a knife out. i realized it really wasn't worth anything over a knife. >> what you're doing here is terrific. i mean, where a man get a good hot open turkey sandwich and good slice of pie, it's a beautiful thing.

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♪ ♪ hush little baby don't say a word ♪ ♪ papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird ♪ my name is heather taylor.

♪ and if that mockingbird won't sing ♪ i'm a mother of three. ♪ papa's going to buy you a diamond ring ♪ the two older kids experienced my addiction. my addiction started with pills. i started sniffing heroin. i shot up for the first time, and shortly there later i found out i was pregnant. i had my daughter. she was in the hospital for six weeks because she was addicted to the methadone and i had to watch my baby go through withdrawal. my son was 4, and my daughter was 6 weeks when they were taken away. i lost my kids for 33 days shy of two years. i became serious about my recovery. >> so is this the bad part of town or is this just a place where you're unlikely to be for

people to find you. >> just a place where people are unlikely to find you. i wouldn't necessarily say there was a bad part of greenfield. i mean, it's probably pretty spread out, bad, i guess you'd say. >> what would you do? would you come here to shoot up? >> yep. you know we'd go down here and just hang out down there. i bet if we walked along here, we'd probably find needles and bags, you know. >> so basically you'd come down here, shoot up and what, are you going to nod out? just sit down -- >> just sit down and hang out. a day like this, hang out under the underpass over there. >> not exactly la vida loca. >> no. as you can see, all the trash and yuck, it's dirty and gross. there's probably people who live down here. >> really? >> yeah, there's a lot of homeless people in greenfield. >> what do you think now when you see somebody who's clearly junk sick on the street?

>> it gives me that yuck, sick feeling. and it scares me. like it reminds me why i don't want to be out there. it's just scary. a friend of mine overdosed january 1st of this year. and my brother-in-law overdosed in wendy's bathroom and they found him. and they brought him back to life. he was dead in the bathroom. >> uh-huh. >> so this is my narc cam. i carry this around, i have one of these in my house and i have one in my car. i have a fear that my husband's going to relapse and i'm going to find him dead. you just put this in here and squirt it up their nose. >> now in most cases, as i understand it, they're right out of it. >> they're right out of it and they're instantly sick. >> they don't wake up happy. but they wake up. >> but they wake up. >> somebody's blue there. >> on the floor. >> are you saving that life? >> yep, saving that life. absolutely. and then kicking their ass

[ laughter ] >> better now? life better now? >> absolutely. my kids have been home three years. you know, i no longer have to watch my back. you know, i live a pretty straight and narrow life, which, you know, people might say is boring, but i love my life today. i'm grateful. >> where are we headed? >> this way. >> oh, okay. >> to the recover projects. this is where my recovery started. >> started nearly a decade ago in one of the two main streets of greenfield, the recover project is community-based. an open arms program aimed at helping addicts stay clean. >> given the opiate heroin epidemic in our community, we'd like to start the conversation, just kind of sharing with one another what happened at that point of our life, what that was like. >> so as a child growing up in a home of addiction, i didn't

understand how they could do all the stuff that they did to me and my brother and sister. like don't you love me enough? then i became a mother, and then i became a heroin addict. and i did all that stuff to my kids. >> my doctor was my biggest drug dealer. i fell down a flight of stairs. just been married. had a baby, fell down the stairs, two jobs, college on top of it. next thing i know i'm on these prescriptions, that's where it all began for me. >> what are the odds you're going to own a house? what's the odds you're going to have a nice car? any car? a place to live, all that stuff? seems less and less likely all the time. contrast that with what happens when you stick a spike in your arm. and why wouldn't you. >> so i had this picture in my head when i got the phone call that my daughter's father had been in the accident and i had just had a c-section and they come in with this needle to give me ativan, and all i needed was a hug. i needed someone to give me a hug and say, i care about you, kaitlyn, and everything's going to be okay. >> i'll tell you something

really shameful about myself. the first time i shot up, i looked at myself in the mirror with a big grin. something was missing in me, whether it was a self-image situation, whether it was a character flaw. i came up with a stable family in the suburbs, i had a lot of advantages. there was some dark genie inside me that i very much hesitate to call a disease that led me to dope. i didn't have anyone else who could have talked me out of what i was doing. an intervention wouldn't have worked. i didn't have a child. i have a 7-year-old daughter now who i never would have had. i never would have thought. i looked in a mirror, and i saw somebody worth saving, or at least that i wanted to try real hard to save. anybody can find themself very easily in this situation. and, you know, i look back on

that, and i think about my daughter. what i'll tell my daughter. you know, that was daddy. ain't no doubt about it. but i hope i can say that was daddy then. this is daddy now. that i'm alive and living in hope. thank you, guys. >> thank you. [ applause ]

♪"once there was a hushpuppy" by dan romis man kind?eitlin ♪ are we good? go see. go look through their windows so you can understand their views. go find out just how kind the hes and shes of this mankind are. chuck, i know i have a 798 fico score, thanks to experian.com. kaboom... get your credit swagger on. go to experian.com. become a member of experian credit tracker and take charge of your score.

in the nation, we know how you feel about your car. so when coverage really counts, you can count on nationwide. ♪ love because what's precious to you is precious to us. ♪ love is strange just another way we put members first. in massachusetts the clam bake is a ritual going back to the flintstones, before the pilgrims. today at the long-standing locals only shooting club, schuetzen veerin in german for

the immigrants who started this ray takes me through the fascinating and arcane process of creating an old-school clambake. >> basically we build a kiln with hardwood and stone. we burn it down, remove the wood and cover it with seaweed and corn husks and put our clam cans and lobsters and corn in there like a pressure cooker. >> we've got a pig hiding in there also. >> no, no, no. we're going to pull a tusker out right now, and you'll see what we have here. >> let's eat. >> all right. [ laughter ] first some good chowder and there really is only one kind of chowder, new england clam chowder. mm-mm. that is good. steamer clams, lobster, corn, potatoes. that's a pretty luxurious clambake here.

>> that was amazing. >> absolutely. >> everybody's attention for a second. the opiod education and awareness task force came together several months ago. i don't think we realized how quickly this could turn into a crisis for us. >> everybody in this room has been touched by or impacted by narcotics in some way. the franklin county opiod task force is a grassroots response. doctors, law enforcement led by franklin county sheriff chris donilon, addiction specialists and addicts themselves are coming together to find community-based solution to what is finally being recognized as a public health crisis rather than a criminal justice problem. >> a great opportunity to come here tonight to break bread and look at the successes that we have had so far, think what makes me more proud than anything else about living in franklin county is that we will not sit back and wait for anybody else to solve this problem for us. we're going to be a model for

the commonwealth and nation on how we save our young people and save our community. [ applause ] >> the city is the place where all the bad stuff was supposed to happen, not nice towns like greenfield. it isn't the image that people used to have 20 years ago that it's a junkie in an alley somewhere using a needle. it's not. it's your kids, it's your neighbors. >> the worst i think is when you have these young people who break a leg and they go to the doctor and get a prescription for oxy and become addicted to it. these are any kid who plays a high school sport. it's a horrible circumstance when that happens. >> it's only started in the past couple of years. yeah, the heroin was around. pills were around but we didn't have people dying. >> once you've been busted for heroin, that's a hard thing to live down. >> got to get rid of that shame factor so people can deal with it, address it and get support from the community. >> i feel like we'll lose a generation of our young people. 18 to 22 is what we're seeing the most. the district attorney, the

police department are all united this. the task force has grown to a hundred people in a matter of six months. that's what we are committed to doing. we will do it until the day that i die. >> i lost one daughter to drugs. you know, whatever it takes. >> let's start by being honest with ourselves. as a nation for decades we were perfectly happy to write off whole neighborhoods, whole cities, whole generations of young men and women. as long as it was an inner city problem, an urban problem, which is to say a black people problem, a brown people problem, send them to prison into a system from which they'll never return. maybe now,now that it's come home to roost and it's the high school quarterback, your next-door neighbor, your son, your daughter, now that grandma is as likely to be a junkie as anyone else, we'll accept there's never been a real war on drugs. war on drugs implies an us

versus them and all over this part of america, people are learning there is no them. there is only us. and we're going to have to figure this out together. >> one of our roles here has always been to take away excess money from people who don't know what to do with it, or who can't think of a better idea how to spend their money. in the old days of doing that, we just throw it on a table. put that into a context of throwing away a bottle of 7-up in a club, that's slightly more honest about it. >> you're talking crass commercialism? >> in the very best sense of the word, this is it. >> is this the cultural center of the country? we may