2019 Photo Contest, Contemporary Issues, 3rd Prize

Faces of an Epidemic

Photographer

Philip Montgomery

for The New Yorker

21 September, 2017

An official from Montgomery County’s coroner’s office examines a sample of seized carfentanil, a synthetic opioid which is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and is used to sedate large mammals, such as elephants, in Drexel, Ohio, USA.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 130 people a day in the US die after overdosing on opioids. President Donald Trump has declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency. The crisis has its roots in the 1990s, when pharmaceutical companies assured doctors that opioid pain relievers were not addictive. The firm Purdue Pharma, in particular, has been accused of aggressive marketing even when the effects of opioids were known. Increased prescription of opioids such as Oxycontin led to widespread misuse. Some people switched to heroin, which was cheaper, and later to synthetic opioids, which are more potent and more likely to lead to a fatal overdose. 

About the photographer

Philip Montgomery

Philip Montgomery is a native Californian living in New York City for the past decade. His work examines the social issues of our time, utilizing observational strategies of...

Technical information

Shutter Speed
1/200
Focal length
115 mm
F-Stop
f/32
ISO
200
Camera
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

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