On Monday night, National Geographic will premiere a new episode of a documentary series that calls Vermont the "most drug-infested state.
"The Big Picture with Kal Penn" crunches data from a variety of topics' and in the latest episode, that data brings the host to Vermont.
The Green Mountain state has reportedly seen an 800 percent increase in illegal drug use and has the highest percentage of drug abusers per capita in the country.
Detective John Merrigan, of the Vermont State Police, agrees.
He said that as demand for heroin becomes greater in the state, more users become dealers, which created more avenues for addicts to get their fix.
"If you're an addict, you're going to have to sell or move heroin to support that habit so it creates its own infrastructure as the problem develops," said Merrigan.
In a small state that's better known for dairy farms than the $2 million in heroin that comes into every week, it can be a shocking realization for outsiders.
It isn't shocking to Gary De Carolis, executive director of the Turning Point Center in Chittenden County.
However, he said that since Vermont's heroin problem made national headlines one year ago in Rolling Stone Magazine, the state has changed the way it combats opiates.
"We've begun to address is in a dynamic way," said De Carolis.
From state support for centers like the Turning Point to investing in education and stepping up law enforcement, De Carolis said Vermont is getting better, but there is still work to be done.
"We need capacities in residential centers so that they never say they are full. We hear that a lot, and it's not okay," he said.
As Merrigan pointed out, since the national spotlight is on the Green Mountain State, i"t's an opportunity for Vermont to become a role model for others in how to tackle this scourge.
"We're a good sized state to do this and there's a lot of good people trying to do just that.
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