As deaths from powerful opioid drugs exploded, a team of Wall Street Journal reporters uncovered how fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, often made in overseas chemical labs, had made America’s drug problem far more lethal. Our reporting exposed the multiple factors that produced the epidemic. We laid bare the terrible human toll on addicts, families and entire communities who feel powerless against the hold these drugs have over their victims. And we showed why the Drug Enforcement Administration is in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse, with overseas labs churning out new synthetic drugs at a furious pace, often staying a step ahead of authorities and helping to fuel the rampant opioid crisis. The Journal was the first to examine the traumatic impact of addiction on the children left behind. And to drive home the human toll, reporters and graphic designers built a gallery of 55 overdose victims from around the country, based on original reporting. The response was among the biggest the reporters had experienced on any project and continued all year. “Finally, someone is realizing that there is going to be a whole generation of children with no parents, no guidance,” wrote a grandmother who is raising the child of her dead child. “Thank you from the bottom of my broken heart.”
