this year's studentcam competition, visit studentcam.org. >> eleanor sparks, charles thrush, are students at eastern middle school. they believe heroine and opioid epidemic is an urgent issue in their documentary entitled "on the edge." >> i noticed over the summer that in huntington, west virginia, 28 people overdosed in a county in just over four hours. then i started getting more interested in huntington and the opioid epidemic. that is how we got to where we are now your >> we started i think it was in december. we worked until middle of march. no middle of february. , we were working every day in class for 2.5 months.

it took us a while. we got our shots at the beginning and 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 took a while. it was not a simple process. >> going to huntington in november right after the election, that took about three days overall with planning all the interviews and talking to people in getting be role. -- b-roll. >> i did not know this existed before charles joined our group and was like this is the topic i pitched for. i was like we can do that. my original topic we each had to , write 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 them.

♪ >> huntington, west virginia, a city standing up on the edge of rural appalachia. overlookimg -- overlooking the midwest. it used to be one of them most successful frontier towns. now it is one of the most depressing industrial failures in the entirety of the u.s.. another thing on the rise in the community, heroin addiction. huntington is a city that always been a bridge between the midwest and east. the railroad ended here, with -- which allowed the industry to flourish. the transportation trains began to blossom in huntington. however soon after huntington, things things began 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 car bumpers or glass, and a lot of that industry went away.

>> as the industry went away, the number of jobs also went away. sadly, this depression was in the middle of the opioid craze. in the late 1990's, companies over marketed pain pills like oxycontin to a significant population of americans here at >> there is no question that great a role in a lot of this to when you look at how many addictive 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 became so dependent on these bills they did horrible , things to attain them. it is better to say it and let other people here it to the get help. i literally ran over my ex-husband's arm. completely broke his whole hand.

arm. over his so it looked like he got hurt so we could get painkillers. >> the government began to reelect the severity of the opioid addiction in the general population, so they took away drugs like oxycontin. lhe shutdown hill mills -- pil mills. 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 -- already and in deterioration of industries like coal in huntington also affected the current crisis. >> we are such an economy that was based on coal. a person goes from making $80,000 a year as a good coal miner, all of a sudden loses his job. his income is simply gone. >> oftentimes recreational or

eric's fi -- instrumental use of drugs can also cause addiction. >> i think it started out with marijuana. i'm sure a lot of people can use marijuana and stop. but from there it went the pills. and there was physical back pain and it was the catalyst for addiction that nearly destroyed her life. >> the back pain. i could not get to quit no matter what i did. her, i wouldp at lay down at her. geneticbecause of a disposition to addiction. >> substance use disorder runs in my family. i believe some folks are genetically predisposed to have substance dependency issues. >> on august 15, 2016, the addiction crisis in huntington hit a staggering peak. 28 people overdosed within a matter of 4 hours. luckily there were only two , deaths.

first responders were quick to help. most experts believe this is not a normal batch of heroine. overdoses are contributed to -- normally, huge surges in overdoses are contributed to other drugs. addiction does not discriminate . >> i live across the street. i have lost every one of my friends. >> heroin addiction has affected the populace of huntington and has deteriorated huntington itself. property on the rapid. -- rampant. not only can you see heroine affects physically but you can , see the depression heroine has left on huntington economically. a possible way to alleviate the problem is treatment. recovery point, west virginia, a struggling drug addicts across the state to a six to nine month long 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. >> sadly this sort of treatment , always has a waiting list of over five months, which india huge hindrance on those seeking help immediately. another way is to lock up many of those who take drugs. this in theory takes addicts off the streets and may help clean up the community. >> we know what to do with people that are addicted. they belong in the criminal justice system. if we do not have a drug problem, they would be stealing rolexes or cars. >> however it is a well-known , fact united states has the highest incarcerated population in the world. >> we don't want people to do this so we will have a really extreme penalty if they get caught. but with the penalty is if you

, boil it down to the simplest terms it is putting someone in a , cage. >> ideas on how to alleviate this are conflicted 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 finally 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 help with funding behind some of these programs, critics, and -- clinics and campaigns, we can , possibly cure the disease of addiction. if we all stir up enough of an outcry against the epidemic, we can possibly get the attention of our president donald trump and his upcoming legislation.

>> to watch all of the prize-winning documentaries in this year's studentcam competition, visit studentcam.org. >> they are students at franklin high school. the documentary on therapy and conversion is entitled "the harm done is transparent. .ake a look here a >> conversion therapy stuck out to me. i felt strongly about stuff. we felt it was something we could tackle ready well. >> it took two weeks for research but the bulk of our time spent on this documentary making the documentary was around a month and a half. a total of two months. it is a topic i think a lot mo