North Carolina is in the grip of the grip of a drug overdose epidemic, with fentanyl being the primary culprit.

More than 4,000 people in North Carolina died from drug overdoses in 2021, the most substance abuse related deaths ever recorded in the state and 77% of those deaths involved fentanyl.

WRAL’s documentary, The Crisis Next Door, airs tonight, Wednesday, March 15 at 7:30 p.m. on WRAL. WRAL is Capitol Broadcasting’s NBC station in Raleigh, NC.

The Crisis Next Door, shows how fentanyl has destroyed the lives of thousands of North Carolinians across the state, what the state is doing to fight this epidemic and what more is needed to save lives.

It will be also available for on-demand viewing on wraldocumentary.com, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, and Samsung Smart TV beginning Wednesday, March 15 at 7:30 p.m. The documentary will premiere on WRAL Doc’s YouTube on Wednesday, March 15 at 8 p.m.

Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin. This means a very small amount, as little as 2 milligrams, could be a potentially lethal dose.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a family in the United States that hasn’t, at some level, been impacted when you’re talking about the numbers that we’re talking about,” says Dr. Carrie Brown with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS).

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