Join us for the launch of THIS IS OHIO: The Overdose Crisis and the Front Lines of a New America  by Jack Shuler

Every overdose is a policy failure. Such is the guiding element of journalist Jack Shuler’s new book. This is Ohio explores the current addiction crisis as a human rights problem fostered by poverty and inadequate health care.

Opioids are the current face of addiction, but Shuler shows the crisis in our midst is one that has long been fostered by income inequality, the loss of manufacturing jobs across the Rust Belt, and lack of access to health care. What is playing out in Ohio today isn’t only about opioids, but rather a decades-long economic and sociological shift in small towns all across the United States. It’s also about a larger culture of stigma at the heart of how we talk about addiction. What happens in Ohio will have ramifications felt across the nation and for decades to come.

Jack Shuler is the author of three books, including The Thirteenth Turn: A History of the Noose. His writing has appeared in The New Republic, Pacific Standard, The Christian Science Monitor, 100 Days in Appalachia, and Los Angeles Times, among other publications. He is chair of the narrative journalism program at Denison University. He lives in Ohio.

Presented in partnership with PEN Across America

Free and open to the public. Copies of This is Ohio can be pre-ordered online via Joseph-Beth Cincinnati HERE.

THIS IS OHIO: Jack Shuler