Drug Abuse: Shadows and Hope in Every Community Drug abuse casts long shadows over city blocks and quiet neighborhoods. Children grow up with empty chairs at dinner tables. Parents search for missing hope, night after night. The numbers alone are staggering—overdose deaths in the United States now reach record highs each year. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl drive much of this crisis according to the CDC, with overdose rates from these drugs rising dramatically in the last decade. Young people face new risks as drug trends shift. More teens use cannabis, while use of other drugs has dropped in recent years, creating fresh challenges for families as reported by the University of Michigan. The effects reach every corner: emergency rooms, school cafeterias, playgrounds, and living rooms. But where there’s darkness, there is also hope—a growing movement of prevention, treatment, and community care. The Road to Addiction: Causes and Consequences The journey into drug abuse rarely starts wit...