New York state is in the middle of a deadly – and costly – epidemic ripping apart families, ravaging communities and filling jails.

Roughly 500,000 Americans have died from an opioid overdose in the past 15 years – and the rate of addiction has risen by almost 500 percent.

Over the course of an hour, The Cost of Heroin will share the struggles of an addicted jail inmate and a woman in recovery trying to reassemble her life. Over the course of the same hour, three people will die of an opioid overdose.

“It’s cheap and it’s prevalent and it’s potent.  And once they get that first -time high they chase that high forever.  Many times, taking their lives,” said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple.

But it isn’t just the toll on lives that adversely impacts communities.

New York spends $213 million each year on treatment programs, housing, training and naxolone kits. On top of that, nearly half of the inmates are incarcerated for drug-related offenses, which costs $60,000 per inmate, per year.

“We’re not seeing any slowing down of this problem.  We’re seeing just a growth that we haven’t seen in other areas before,” said Jim Malatras, president of the Rockefeller Institute of Government. “There is no state and no community in this nation not dealing with this problem right now.”

For Sheriff Apple, the solution is more than just incarceration of addicts.

“I think we’re fighting as hard as we can,” he said. “We look at it as like a triangle with treatment, education and prevention. We will never win the war on drugs. We can drop all the money you want. We can drop all the police officers you want to it. All we are going to be doing is taking good tax dollars and throwing it away.

Watch The Cost of Heroin for a full picture of the crisis in New York. The show premieres at 7 p.m. on May 22, and will be followed by a one-hour town hall.