Ravaged Communities and Bad Journalism

The NY Times has identified a new menace stalking America:

As prescription drug abuse ravages communities across the country, doctors are confronting an emerging challenge: newborns dependent on painkillers.

Prescription drug abuse is certainly a common problem in America. It is common everywhere, including safe middle-class neighborhoods like mine. Looking across the landscape of Catonsville, I detect no ravages.

Find me, if you can, any example anywhere of a community "ravaged" by oxycontin. Where would it be? Brentwood, in Los Angeles? Scarsdale, New York?

Please.

As for babies born addicted to opiates, yes, this is expensive and probably poses some risk, but so far there is no evidence of long-term harm to the babies. It's just crack babies all over again, another way for bored people to worry about Great Scary Meanaces besieging their safe little worlds.