Sandy Presant, a Los Angeles native, gave an emotional speech about losing his son to a drug overdose, and Jena Robinson, a Shatterproof ambassador, told the crowd: "Remember, there is no person walking the face of the earth who demonstrates more courage, dignity, honesty, and integrity on a daily basis than a person in recovery.”

HAGERSTOWN, Md.—Kevin Simmers relished locking up drug users, no matter how little crack they had on them. “If they just had a pipe—fine,” he said. “At the end of the night, I wanted to have an arrest. I wanted a body.” Decades later, despite his efforts, the opioid epidemic was in full swing in Hagerstown, “a small town with big-city problems” an hour outside Baltimore.