Today I want to go back a little bit to another often overlooked and sometimes unheard of bit of history... The OxyContin Express...
Have you ever heard that expression before?
The entire State of West Virginia has been fighting another kind of war for many years. The War on Prescription Drugs as well as The War on Heroin. Who is winning?
Have you ever wondered, just how did all of this start here in West Virginia?I know I have. The honest answer is that a lot of it started first with doctors over prescribing pain medication like Pez candies. It also started in homes with kids who were often finding and taking their parents or grand parents medications. Here is the documentary that won the 2009 Peabody Award,
The Oxycontin Express
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGZEvXNqzkM
This is still a real big problem here. Over the past decade, West Virginia has been part of The Oxycontin Express with doctors who have been dealing drugs the legal way- over prescribing very addicting drugs.
In other instances kids who have found and taken their parents and grand parents medications. Whether some choose to believe it, these prescription opiates IS the gateway to heroin. Many heroin users started as a result of addiction to prescription opiates. Prescription opiates isn't called
hillbilly heroin for no reason at all.
Now we have physicians who now prescribe OxyContin to children as young as eleven years of age. Yep, you may not know that but here is the data:
FDA Approves OxyContin For Kids As Young As Eleven
How many of you know or heard about this? What are your thoughts?
My thought:
Have they lost their ever loving minds? Having a son who is addicted to heroin he has told me he has abused Percocet and OxyContin in the past- smoking them and injecting them just like heroin. Our physicians and doctors have a history so now why are we supposed to trust them?
Aside from cocaine, crack and meth our biggest problem here in Berkeley County and Martinsburg right now is opiates- both heroin and prescriptions.
Our own express here is via our highways. When the doctors stop prescribing opiates the addicted just go to other towns or states to find a doctor who will prescribe pain pills to them. Just like you shop for food, clothes and shoes the addicted shop for doctors who will prescribe drugs. This is known as doctor shopping. Meanwhile, many others turn to heroin. The federal government and the DEA are starting to crack down on these types of operations.
Drugs are also coming in here via our highways. Interstate 81 which is now part of the heroin highway as heroin here comes from places like Baltimore, Philly, New Jersey, New York, D.C. and others... Most don't even try to hide it. That is the sad part.
In Frederick County, Virginia they held a summit on this issue in their county. Shouldn't the counties here in the panhandle as well as Washington County, Maryland have joined them as a joint effort?
West Virginia is now in the top five list as being the most addicted state and #1 in overdoses and death from overdose. Berkeley County has the highest numbers in all of West Virginia's 55 counties from our number of overdoses and dea. Look at the overdoses in this county alone? The numbers is astounding. The problem here is far bigger than what we as citizens can even imagine.
At this rate, there will be no next generation.
To read more
Information on Oxycontin
To be continued....(I am sure)
DISCLAIMER: This post is my opinion. The intent of none of these posts is not meant to degrade, put down or bash our local police and law enforcement, our local governments or physicians. The intent is to discuss the problem. Not discussing it has been devastating to this community and certainly has not made it go away.
Resources for this post
Video Youtube video Oxycontin Express
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