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FROM HIS MOTHER’S KITCHEN TABLE IN MIAMISBURG, OHIO, CHAD COLWELL, 32, TALKED about how quickly the cycle can begin.
美国俄亥俄州迈阿密斯堡，32岁的查德·科尔韦尔坐在母亲家厨房里的餐桌旁，跟我们谈到了药物有多容易上瘾。
"I played football in high school, and my knee and my back got injured," he said as his 3-year-old daughter played outside.
“高中时我打过橄榄球，把膝盖和背部踢伤了，”他说，说话时他3岁的女儿正在外面玩耍。
"I got prescribed painkillers, Percocet and OxyContin, and then it just kind of took off from there."
“医生给我开了处方止痛药，开的是对乙酰氨基酚/羟考酮，我的毒瘾差不多就是从那个时候染上的。”
Prescriptions gave way to cheaper, stronger alternatives.
从吃处方药变成吃更便宜，药效也更强的替代品。
Why scrounge for a $50 pill of Percocet when a tab of heroin can be had for $5?
五美元就能买到一片海洛因，那干嘛还要花50美元买对乙酰氨基酚？
Synthetic opioids, which have flooded into the U.S. from high-volume labs in China and Mexico, are even more potent—and a potentially fatal dose costs less than a Big Mac.
而合成阿片类药物，从中国和墨西哥的高产实验室涌入美国的合成阿片类药物，药效比海洛因还强——而且，剂量足以致命的合成阿片类药物的价格比一个巨无霸还便宜。
On July 4, emergency workers saved Colwell after he overdosed in the driver’s seat of his truck.
7月4日，急救人员从卡车驾驶员座位上将药物服用过量的科尔韦尔抢救了回来。
He says it was his fourth OD.
他说那是他第四次服用过量了。
Inside a rehab facility in West Virginia, Jason Burgard told of a similar spiral.
在西弗吉尼亚的一个康复中心，杰森·布加德讲述了类似的堕落故事。
"When the pain gets great enough, you get so desperate just to feel okay, just to feel right,"
“疼痛特别强烈的时候，你就会不顾一切地想办法让自己感觉好点儿，”
says Burgard, who is nearing 10 months of sobriety after years of addiction and relapses.
经历了多年的成瘾和复发，如今已经戒毒10个月的布尔加德如是说到。
"A lot of people say drugs or alcohol eventually stop working, that they don’t cover up pain as well toward the end.
“很多人都说药物或酒精最终会失去作用，无法掩盖疼痛。
But heroin works. Heroin does its job."
但海洛因是管用的。海洛因还是能够缓解疼痛。”
The toll is also high for those who deal with what happens after the heroin does its job.
对于那些要承受海洛因发挥作用的后果的人而言，代价也是沉重的。
Fire departments have been transformed into mobile emergency rooms.
许多消防部门都已经改成了移动急救室。
Police now carry drugs that block the brain’s opioid receptors,
如今，警方出警时还要携带阻止脑内阿片受体活跃的药物，
lest they themselves drop dead from an accidental sniff of confiscated Carfentanil.
以免他们自己因意外嗅到被没收的卡芬太尼而死亡。
High schools have started to stock up on naloxone, with principals getting trained to administer the emergency drug.
许多高中学校也已开始储备纳洛酮，学校校长也开始接受管理急救药物相关的培训。
"Our job has changed completely in the last seven to 10 years,"
“在过去的七到十年里，我们的工作完全变了，”
said Jan Rader, the fire chief of Huntington, W.Va., in January, one day after her department was called to three overdose deaths.
1月份，华盛顿州亨廷顿的消防队长简·雷德说到，就在前一天，在她的部门曾三次被召集起来处理药物过量致死案件。
"We learned how to fight fire and cut people out of cars, but it’s not going to go back to that."
“我们学会了如何救火，学会了如何从车子里救人，但现在的工作内容完全不同了。”
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
