The cost of addiction: New novel draws on Valley backdrop to explore how substance use upends people’s lives

Kaine & Banks Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Support Mental Health Care and Substance Use Disorder Recovery

“Today, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Jim Banks (R-IN), members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, introduced the Providing Empathetic and Effective Recovery (PEER) Support Act, bipartisan legislation to support mental health care and substance use disorder recovery. Specifically, the bill would elevate peer support specialists—individuals with lived experience with a mental health condition or substance u…

The cost of addiction: New novel draws on Valley backdrop to explore how substance use upends people’s lives

Several years ago, Mattea Kramer, an Amherst writer and researcher who’s studied and written about the federal budget as well as drug policies at state and federal levels, spent time interviewing a number of women in the Greenfield jail who were part of a recovery program for substance use.