West Virginia Coal Miner Describes Losing 3 Brothers to Drug Overdose

HOLDEN, W.Va.—One by one, Sammy Stafford lost three half-brothers to drug overdoses over the past eight years. His is one of many families devastated by addiction in West Virginia, the epicenter of a nationwide fentanyl crisis. Since 2019, synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, have killed more than 350,000 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the state has seen a drop in the rate of unintentional overdose deaths, West Virginia leads the country in deaths per capita.  At 54, Stafford has worked 27 years in the industry, toiling 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for years, though now his schedule is more reasonable....