American Overdose by Chris McGreal

Author:Chris McGreal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2018-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

THE RED DOTS from the CDC’s map found their way to places few would have predicted. The US attorney in Salt Lake City John Huber described “an insatiable appetite in Utah for pain pills and for heroin.” The mostly Mormon state was awash in opioids of one kind or another. The dominance of the conservative Church of Latter-day Saints appeared to be a cause of addiction, not a deterrent.

Dan Snarr, a member of the church’s high-priest group leadership, struggled to change attitudes within the LDS leadership after his son, Denver, became hooked on painkillers following a rugby injury. He died at the age of twenty-five as he attempted to get himself off the drugs by buying methadone on the street.

Snarr, who is also a former mayor of the small town of Murray in Salt Lake County, said he first realized the scale of the problem when other Mormons came to him after Denver’s death to speak about addiction in their own families driven by the church itself. “A lot of people recognize that it’s beyond anything to do with pain. It alleviates the stress and pain of this life and the challenges that you face.”

Snarr said the culture of the Mormon Church makes “people feel that they should be perfect” and sets up a standard they struggle to live up to. “So they start using prescription painkillers not to address pain, physical pain, but the mental issues that go along with feeling inferior. That you just cannot cope with all the things you’re expected to be and to do. When I talk to them, that’s what they tell me: ‘They make us feel like we’re the worst.’”

One of those who struggled was Maline Hairup, a devout Mormon who spurned the stimulants forbidden by her church, including coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol, but was hooked on prescription drugs most of her adult life. She was prescribed opioids in her midtwenties for pancreatitis and migraines. Her sister, Mindy Vincent, reckoned they became a crutch to cope with the pressures of life in a deeply religious society.

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