The heroin and opioid prescription drug addiction epidemic is not unique to one town, county or state.

Similarly, It affects people regardless of their upbringing or economic status, the neighborhood they live in or even their political affiliation.That was the message at a town-hall meeting headlined by U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-17th District, in Coaldale Borough Monday night. Cartwright and Jason Snyder, an official with the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, shared what is being done in Harrisburg and Washington to address the problem, including alternatives to the courts."This is the worst health care crisis that we've seen in our time in Pennsylvania," Snyder said. "The numbers are shocking, and certainly saddening. The stories behind them are even more saddening."Last year, for the first time, drug overdoses surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading accidental cause of death in the U.S., Cartwright said.And attitudes are changing toward the way to address the drug problem. He said that more Republicans are joining Democrats in advocating alternatives to strict enforcement against people suffering from addiction. Cartwright said that the U.S. has a dual problem of drug addiction and an addiction to incarceration."As much as we tend to arm wrestle over everything else, this seems to be something people are coalescing around," he said.That includes bills he has co-sponsored to encourage more responsible prescription guidelines and expanding access to naloxone, the treatment that can reverse a drug overdose. He would also like to see drug courts so repeat offenders can seek treatment instead of being repeatedly incarcerated.But he admitted that there are still a lot of lawmakers unwilling to look at some of those more unconventional approaches.Mayor Joel Johnson, who organized the forum, asked Cartwright if Washington could hold the companies that make widely-abused prescription opioids somewhat responsible for the fact that they make money off this crisis, Cartwright said that for congress, baby steps are more realistic.Snyder added that in Pennsylvania 2,500 people died of drug overdoses in 2014. That's officially the largest number ever, but 2015 looks to outpace it.Himself a recovering prescription drug addict, Snyder shared the tragic effects that the addiction epidemic has had on his family. His two brothers died of heroin overdoses within two years of each other. With the appearance of someone who could do Cartwright's job some day, Snyder said even after their deaths, he hid his own addiction because of the stigma attached to drug abuse.He said now it is incumbent upon recovering addicts like himself to spread the word that addiction is a disease.He was adamant about the need for every police department to carry the overdose-reversing drug naloxone."The hardest thing for my mother is the fact that my brothers got what they deserved. And people say that about the 2,500, that their lives weren't worth saving," he said.His office is also advocating for programs that would divert people suffering from addiction from the justice system into drug treatment.Residents thanked Snyder and Cartwright for visiting the borough."The stigma has to go away for parents and family members, too. Teachers that know, police that know, say something. And all police should have Narcan. Please save a life," Judy Veron said.