The Cincinnati Epidemic Two women sit on a stoop on East McMicken Avenue in Over-the-Rhine, smoking crack cocaine, on Thursday, July 11, 2019. One says she plans to inject heroin later. She's been using the drug for 20 years. Last weekend, the Cincinnati area had 24 overdose calls and seven hospitalizations in 24 hours. Kristie Combs strokes her daughter's hair as she sits on the porch of a home in Norwood on Wednesday, June 19, 2019. "She's an angel now," Combs says to her daughter, describing someone she knew who died after an overdose. Combs is a resident of Bellevue, Kentucky, but she babysits in Norwood, a neighborhood consistently hit with overdoses this summer. She said she has lost probably five members to heroin addiction, and that it often leaves grandparents raising their grandchildren when parents have drug-related issues or lose custody. A woman who wishes to remain anonymous pours crack from a small pipe onto her hand on East McMicken Street in Over The Rhine before she smokes it. She says she used heroin a couple years ago, but no longer uses. Instead, she smokes crack. Norwood, Ohio, on Wednesday, June 19, 2019. A mural depicts an angel on East McMicken Avenue in Over-the-Rhine on Thursday, July 11, 2019.
