MARCH 2 - 15, 2018 • VOL. 12— NO. 5
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► Democratic candidates for governor stake out positions PAGE 4 ► City to require short-term rental registration, licensing PAGE 2
Coping with a Crisis: Opioid addiction in the suburbs EXCLUSIVE SERIES
Life after death: Families turn obituaries into protests against the stigma of addiction
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New highway toll lanes could have major neighborhood impacts BY JOHN RUCH johnruch@reporternewspapers.net New toll lanes on I-285 and Ga. 400 could tower 30 feet or higher over neighborhoods on elevated ramps, eat into back yards, and plug major interchanges into such local streets as Mount Vernon Highway and Raider Drive in a state conceptual design that could start construction within five years. The “managed lanes” could have massive impacts on neighborhood character, local traffic and mass transit options, but the concepts remain largely unknown to the general public. The city of Sandy Springs is protesting parts of the concepts and suggesting some alternatives, but mostly behind the scenes. The Georgia Department of Transportation’s first public meetings for the Ga. 400 lanes are expected to be held late this year after the conceptual designs are more solid. A rare public display of the behind-theSee NEW on page 14
MAX BLAU
Larry and Peggy Lord display a childhood photo of their sons Ashby and Hunter. Ashby, at right, died of a heroin overdose last year.
BY MAX BLAU
O
n a Sunday afternoon last April, the moment Larry Lord had dreaded for roughly two decades finally happened. His wife, Peggy, found their 35-year-old son Ashby no longer breathing in the basement of their ranch home on Sandy Springs’ Mount Paran Road. She tried performing CPR and called 911. But nothing the paramedics did could revive Ashby after a heroin overdose. Larry was devastated. Like many family members after a death, he faced the task of writing an obituary so that newspapers and the funeral home could inform their loved ones. Larry, an architect, considered himself a problem-solver.
First of a 4-Part Series The combination of prescription painkillers, heroin and synthetic opioids is killing people around the nation, including within Reporter Newspapers communities. In this exclusive four-part series, we will look at how local families, nurses, prosecutors, recovering addicts and others are responding to a growing epidemic that already kills more people than cars, guns or breast cancer each year. To share your thoughts and stories, email editor@reporternewspapers.net
A doctor’s overview of the opioid crisis. See Commentary, page 10 ► Usually, he could sketch out new doors or windows to make design problems disappear. He’d written obituaries, too,
most recently for his first wife and Ashby’s mother, Shannon, after she died from complications of cancer. But the circumstances of Ashby’s life posed difficult questions in how to talk about his death. Euphemisms are a tradition of sorts for overdose victims. Their obituaries say that they left this world or entered eternal rest while glossing over how it happened. The reasons vary from not speaking ill of the dead to a fear that it might reflect poorly on the living. “For many years, you never saw the word ‘addiction’ in an obit,” says Dr. Frances Levin, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University Medical Center. “That’s because of the stigma related to Continued on page 8
City fears new state laws would end local controls BY JOHN RUCH johnruch@reporternewspapers.net
The city fears that several new state legislative proposals would undo recent local laws, from apartment construction to pet sales. One example is a proposed law that would kill Sandy Springs’ restriction on using wood to build large multifamily housing complexes. The proposal is “disastrous” and would allow “cheap apartments,” Mayor Rusty Paul is complaining. But state Rep. John Corbett (R-Lake Park), the bill’s lead sponsor, says the law would simply allow developers to be free to choose See CITY on page 13