Kentucky drug overdose deaths soar

[Hannah Bell]

In an investigative series published in January and February, the Louisville Courier-Journal found that Kentucky drug addiction deaths have risen to 1,000 deaths per year, surpassing traffic fatalities in the state, and more than double the drug death toll of a decade ago. Deaths from prescription drug abuse rose from 403 in 2000, to 978 in 2009. Traffic accidents killed 791 Kentuckians in 2009.

The Appalachian region, and particularly eastern Kentucky, southwestern West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio are stricken with poverty and high unemployment, which has fed a black market economy and led to rising drug addiction rates. Eastern Kentucky registered a prescription drug overdose death rate of 26.3 per 100,000, which is almost twice as high as the rest of the nation.

The Courier-Journal investigation found that eastern Kentucky’s Bell County registered a staggering prescription drug death rate of 54 per 100,000, and advocates have reported treating children as young as 9 for addiction.

In many counties in the coalfields region, well over one-third of residents live below the poverty line, with large numbers of families barely subsisting on $10,000 per year. Moreover, Census Bureau figures indicate that in some counties, more than half of the adult population over the age of 25 did not receive a high school diploma or general equivalency degree. The lack of job opportunities, along with an utter absence of recreational facilities or cultural activities have forced young people to flee the area in search of opportunities, further collapsing the social and economic prospects in communities.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/appa-a22.shtml


the rural ghetto economy.

[LynneSin]

1. I just watched something on A&E about 'Hillbilly Herion'. It was filmed in Southern Ohio

Seems first it's related to all the things you posted there. But the other problem was these 'Pain Clinics' that were all over the area where people could easily get hardcore pain meds like Oxycontin for a $200 fee. They were terribly unregulated, run by former criminals and using doctors who rarely saw the patients but wrote 1000s of scripts. They just recently passed a bill in Ohio putting much more regulation into these 'Pain Centers' but the devastation was pretty bad in the area.

EDIT NOTE: I read more on the article and it was the same issue - prescription drug medicine.

[era veteran]

2. The pill pipeline mainly is in Florida to here.

We do not call it hillbilly heroin. Hillbilly is a slur. When they get good and hooked the cost conscious will drive to Cincinnati to score real heroin. That racist city controlled by retired U Boat Captains likes its poor folks hooked on something to keep them down.
The scariest thing is that some people who think that it is a rural thing will find out when their teenagers start up. Scourge is all over and growing.

[Hannah Bell]

3. "rural ghetto economy" means the same process that took place in urban ghettos

is in operation. jobs go, drugs come in, drugs = economic force + as you say, a means of a kind of "pacification"

[era veteran]

4. Yes, I see it moving in the middle class suburbs now.

It has hit members of my family and thankfully they are clean now . Still if you need those drugs to counter real pain they are a godsend.

[Hannah Bell]

5. drugs have been in middle class suburbs for a long time. most people

give them up as they move into adult life or remain chippers -- because they have jobs, money, responsibilities, status, dreams, etc. Of course some people don't, but they were typically exceptions & looked down on, pitied, or treated as "ill". And of course families with money could provide a kind of soft landing - in the same way that the money in the families of rich addicts could.

the distinctive feature of a ghetto economy is that the drug economy provides the "jobs", the "status", the "dreams" etc. -- because other economic alternatives are mostly absent.

but maybe you mean you are seeing formerly middle-class suburbs become "ghettoized".

[era veteran]

8. No, the 'burbs haven't gone to a ghetto economy but

their kids are getting hooked more and more. I have 3 or 4 employees, twenties, that were hooked in HS and have rehabbed out of their addiction. The sad thing is that they drink a lot now. We have found a great rehab concept in Louisville called the Healing Place, which is doing great work. I can't say enough about that program, it works. We have several kids from here in that program now and one that finished, 10 months, and is a peer counselor now.

http://www.thehealingplace.org/staff-and-facilities.aspx

[LynneSin]

9. You know what pisses me off about 'rural ghetto economy'

And that is it's those same people in rural parts of the state that slam those of us who live in the city. I see it here in Delaware, everytime there's a shooting in Wilmington the folks in the lower part of the state chime in with how the cities are all dangerous and think anyone 'not-white' is a drain on society and living off the government teat.

But you go to any of these rural parts of the country and guess what - they have the same drug addiction problems (and some of those areas much worse than the cities), same crime and those white folks are also living off of the government teat. Looking at some of the crime reports out of the southern part of the state makes me glad I'm safe here in the city.

The issue is simple - drug problems are everywhere, poverty is everywhere and these issues do not know a skin color, a race or a region of the world.

[Scottybeamer70]

6. Hmmmmmmm

"prescription drug abuse".............maybe we're after the wrong drug pushers!

[LynneSin]

10. These aren't being prescribed by your well respected family doctor

Pain meds, under the proper supervision, can be a lifesaver for someone dealing with excessive pain.

These pain meds are being sold thru storefront drug dealers who setup "Pain Management Stores" at your local seedy strip malls. Many of these places are owned by crime families and other unscrupulous people who will hire shady doctors to spend the day writing countless scripts for pain meds. The doctor doesn't even give you a checkup or follow up with why you are in pain. You just go to a Pain Mgmt center, wait your turn in line and then place your order. You get a script and you are also told which pharmacy to turn in your script. A pill addict from Kentucky can drive to Florida or Ohio (although they finally passed a law to crack down on this stuff) and hit up a few dozen of these places scoring tons of prescription drugs for as little as $5 a pill and then turn around and resell them for $100 on the streets up north.

It was crazy how these 'Pill Mills' work and thanks to lax regulations in states like Florida or at one tie, Ohio, these pills flood the market.

You know, with the crackdown on Crystal Meth (another rural drug problem) I wonder if the drug of choice changed to prescription drugs.

[Hannah Bell]

11. the loose regulation would suggest that addicting people & enabling legalized drug

dealing is perhaps the objective.

as another poster said, if the price rises some will turn to heroin, the cheaper alternative.

[kentuck]

7. It is worse than you imagine...

It is the economy. They are bartered and sold for as much as $100 each on the streets. A small population actually work in the mines. It is devastating.