Nux Vomica

Homeopathic Surgery

Night had already fallen when the motorcycle slowly puttered up to the clinic. It was during the periodic “lights out” that beset the village every 72 hours or thereabouts, so electricity had been shut down until dawn. In the darkness, one could manage to make out three riders dismounting from the bike.

I had only arrived in the village a day or two before, but later I would learn that patients often arrived at the clinic in this manner. They’d be sandwiched between the driver and someone riding shotgun who kept them upright.

Better Than Maple Syrup

It’s no secret that heroin is to be found just about anywhere in the region.  The governor of Vermont devoted most of his state of the State speech to the epidemic; a national magazine infamously had a cover story about it complete with a front-page picture of a Vermonter shooting up heroin as the replacement image on what would have been a can of maple syrup.

 In a small state like Vermont, it quickly gets close and personal.   Heroin is not ghettoized into a specific community or group here.  It’s less than comforting when your children are attending the funeral of a friend who overdosed or live across the street from a smack house.  A friend told me that his high school aged child couldn’t get away from the stuff – it was in school, it was at work, it was at play.  Another friend sent their child, recent college graduate, across the country to get away from this drug infested environment.