all month we're featuring our student cam winners in c-span's video documentary competition for middle and high school students. this year, students told us the most urgent issue for the new president and congress. our second prize middle school winner is a great is from maryland. -- is 8th graders from maryland. they believe the heroine and opioid epidemic is an urgent issue in their documentary titled "on the edge." >> in west virginia, 28 people overdosed in a county in just over four hours. i started getting more interested in the opioid epidemic. that is how we ot to where we are at. >> we started i think it was in december. we worked until middle of march. middle of february. we were working every day in class for 2.5 months. it took us a while. it was a long time editing. we had to plan everything out. we had to plan what we wanted and where we wanted it. it was not a simple process.

>> going to huntington in november right after the election, that took about three days overall planning all the interviews and talking to eople. >> i did not know this existed before charles joined our group and was like this is the topic i fishedpitched for. my original topic, we each had to rite our own individual pitch, mine was about the decriminalization of drugs and how that might be a better alternative to jail time or it might not. we kind of combined hem. -- huntington, west virginia, overlooking the midwest. it

used to be one of them was most successful frontier towns. now it is one of the most depressing industrial failures in the u.s. another thing on the rise in the community, heroin addiction. the railroad ended here, with allowed the industry to flourish. the transportation trains began to blossom in huntington. things egan to get worse. >> huntington was like a lot of cities in america that at one time produced a lot of products, whether it be railroad cars or glass, and a ot of that >> as the industry went away, the number of jobs also went away. sadly, this depression was in the middle of the opioid grace. -- craze. companies

marketed oxycontin to a large population. >> there is no doubt they played a role. when you look at how many substances were marketed and pushed into west virginia when our population is one of the smallest in the united states. >> slowly but surely, people began to be addicted to miracle drugs. people began became so dependent on them, they did horrible things. >> i literally ran over my x-husband's arm. iran over his arm -- i ran over his arm so it looked like he got hurt so we could get painkillers. >> the government began to realize the issue and took away

drugs like oxycontin. the elimination of these drugs did not help solve this problem whatsoever. people looked to the next cheapest option for their fix, heroin. while local government and marketing played a huge role in the addiction epidemic, coal production also affect the prices. >> we are such an economy that is based on coal. a person goes for making $80,000 a year as a good coal miner all of a sudden loses his job. completely >> recreational or extermination or extermination will use of drugs can also cause addiction. >> i think it started out with marijuana. i assure a lot of people can use marijuana and

stop. from their, it went to pills. >> it nearly destroyed her ife. >> the matter what i would do, i would hurt him i would sit down, it would hurt. >> substance use disorder runs in my family. i believe some folks are genetically predisposed to have dependency issues. >> on august 15, 2016, the crisis in huntington hit a staggering piece. 28 people overdosed within a matter of 4 hours. lovely, there were only two deaths. most experts believe this is not a normal batch of heroine. normally, large overdoses are contributed to the other drugs. addiction

does not discriminate no matter where someone might be rom. >> i have lost everyone. >> heroin addiction has affected the populace of huntington and deteriorated huntington itself. property runs rancid. not only can you see heroine affects specifically, but you can see the depression heroine has left on huntington economically. a possible way to alleviate the problem is treatment. recovery oint, with virginia west virginia, a six to nine month program. many believe this sort of treatment deserves much more funding than it currently has. >> we need funding for treatment. we need funding for people when they get out of treatment because a lot of them have been in trouble with the

police and the law. >> this sort of treatment is normally completed in over five months, which can be a hit with all those in need help immediately. another way is to lock up many of those who take drugs. this in theory takes addicts off the streets. >> we know what to do with people that are addicted. live along in the criminal justice system. if we do not have a drug problem, they would be stealing rolexes or cars. >> it is a well-known fact the u.s. has the highest incarcerated population in the world. >> we don't want people to do this so we will have a really xtreme penalty if they get caught. what that penalty is if you boil it down to simple as terms, it is putting someone in cage. >> ideas on how to alleviate this are inflicted, but there is one thing unanimously agreed upon. there must be funding put

into the alleviation of the crisis. huntington is beginning to put money into treatment and mitigation of addiction. >> i am really pleased to say that our state is finally coming together. we have a lot of different organizations and people that are working together to fight this epidemic. we have the people at marshall university. we have the law enforcement people, the police, the hospitals, the emergency rooms. we have a lot of people working together now. schools that we have not had before. >> if we all come together and if we all come together and help>> with funding behind some of these programs, critics, and campaigns, we can possibly cure he disease of addiction. if we tart enough of an outcry against the epidemic, we can possibly get the attention of our president donald trump and his