Essay from America: With 47,000 deaths last year drugs are an election issue

Donald Trump’s plan to drug-proof America with his wall along the Mexican border seems a little remote way up in the north-eastern state of Pennsylvania, writes Caroline O’Doherty.

Heroin use has reached crisis levels here, say law enforcement agencies which counted more than 3,500 drug overdose deaths here last year — more than the annual death toll from road crashes in the state.

The number was up almost a third on the 2014 figure and to put it into a familiar context, it’s a death rate that runs four times higher than Ireland’s.