BOSWELL, IN—Saying they figured their community’s mix of high unemployment and low economic mobility would make it a prime target for the drug problem devastating similar small towns throughout the nation, residents of Boswell, IN reportedly wondered aloud Friday what was taking the heroin epidemic so long to get there. “I keep hearing about how small, economically depressed cities all over the country have been succumbing to the flood of cheap heroin, and given the state of things here, it just seems like we really should be looking on helplessly as our neighbors turn to lives of hard drug use,” said Boswell native Kathryn Witte, echoing the sentiments of her 770 fellow residents who argued that, with the town’s rural location and lack of entertainment options, Boswell should be awash in overdoses and drug-related crime by now. “Our population’s shrinking, most of the old jobs are gone, and we keep falling further and further behind the modern economy—you’d think there’d be hundreds of desperate people here just looking for an easy escape. But for whatever reason, it just hasn’t hit yet. Huh.” In contrast to the late-arriving heroin epidemic, Witte added that the town had been far ahead of the trend when it came to the spike in the local suicide rate.

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