By JOHN RABY
Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Elizabeth Warren is visiting some of the places hit hardest by the opioid epidemic, pledging to fight the nation's painkiller addiction crisis by taxing the wealthiest U.S. households.

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate plans to deliver her message Friday to the small West Virginia town of Kermit. West Virginia has by far the nation's highest overdose death rate.

Warren will be visiting a fire department a few blocks from a now-closed pharmacy where wholesale drug distributor McKesson shipped an average of nearly 10,000 hydrocodone pills per day in 2007.

A decade later, the town sued McKesson and four other drug wholesalers in an attempt to recoup the costs of dealing with opioid abuse.

Warren also has stops planned later Friday in Chillicothe and Columbus, Ohio.

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