For another perspective on the rise in overdoses and drug-related deaths during the pandemic, we turn to Dr. Rick Dierenfeldt.
He spent more than ten years as a police officer and a criminal investigator before turning to academia - and he is now an assistant professor of criminal justice here on this campus, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Rick and his colleagues at UTC have studied the impacts of drug use, addiction, incarceration - and more - in rural Tennessee.