This is what happens to public funds in SW Virginia.

SW Va. gets $650,000 in OxyContin settlement

ABINGDON — Virginia will apply more than $650,000 in civil settlement funds to treat substance abusers in Southwest Virginia, especially of opiates in general and the OxyContin painkiller in particular...(The) awards made possible by a $19.5 million civil settlement Virginia and 24 other states reached with the producer of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, L.P.

According to politicians and the press, "$200,000 for the Appalachian Substance Abuse Coalition, $306,414 for the region’s Department of Mental Health, Mental Rehabilitation and Substance Abuse Services, and $150,000 to be administered by the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. Funds are to be applied toward outreach and prevention efforts as well as treatment programs. OxyContin emerged as a drug abuse scourge across Southwest Virginia beginning around the mid-1990s. McDonnell said 228 people died in the region from overdoses of oxycodone, the main ingredient in OxyContin, a powerful painkiller with legitimate medical applications."

...In the past 15 months, DMME Division of Mines Chief Frank Linkous said 230 miners were identified as drug abusers. But unless coal companies were willing to go the extra mile for employees, there were no state-funded treatment programs targeting miners. The grant will help remedy that situation..." Comment: Note that miners are among the highest paid workers in the region, so why are they getting taxpayer funded drug treatment while many penniless addicts are ignored? Most of the funds will go for salaries and operation of state agencies and so-called "non-profits" anyway. Ref. Kingsport Times-News January 2009.

To quote Appalachian Substance Abuse Coalition (Part of the useless pork-barrel ridden ARC):

The region is particularly vulnerable to abuse of highly addictive painkillers because coal minors, farmers, and other laborers are prone to work-related injuries requiring pain medication, according to Dr. Aft Van Zee, who spoke at the meeting.

"There is a much higher prescription drug abuse rate in central Appalachia than other parts of the country," Van Zee said. The area's prescription drug abuse-related death rate is rising, despite the decreasing use of oxycodone. Each year in Virginia, oxycodone causes 10.7 percent of accidental drug deaths, while methadone causes 44.6 percent.

"Drug abuse is destroying the fabric of many families in Southwest Virginia," said Delegate Bud Phillips of Sandy Ridge. "I'm just seeing more and more of it. It's an epidemic."

At the March 2002 Summit Conference (funded by ARC porkers) the Coalition identified a number of unique characteristics affecting substance abuse in Appalachia, including much of the following they were supposed to have solved when they spent billions of tax dollars:

• Substance abuse is a drain on economic life in Appalachian communities: money spent on drugs leaves the Region; the workforce is weakened by substance abuse; treatment is costly; community trust is eroded; and family stability is compromised. Comment: money spend on outside contractors on pork-barrel roads and golf courses also leaves the region.
• Medical providers with limited substance abuse training are often ill equipped to address problems of addiction and drug abuse. Comment: instead they make it hell for sick people who need proper pain medication to get it for fear of being in legal trouble themselves.
• Comparatively low education levels, high rates of unemployment, and job related injuries are closely linked to abuse of alcohol, illicit drugs, and prescription medications. Comment: billions in ARC federal funds ended-up as political pork and cushy government jobs. They admit what they have failed to accomplish in the lack of private sector jobs.
• A long history of anti-regulatory beliefs influences official and unofficial protection of substance sales and abuse. Comment: so more government will fix what more government in the past failed to fix? In other words, give us more funding.

To quote the AP May 23, 2004 on the Appalachian Regional Commission,

...after nearly 40 years and almost $10 billion in federal spending, only eight of the 410 counties in Appalachia are equal to or better than the national average on indicators such as per-capita income, poverty and unemployment rates.

• Some still fighting War on Poverty after 40 years
• Critics of the Appalachian Regional Commission say many distressed areas left
• Article list on religion and politics in Appalachia

• Crime and Drugs in Tri-Cities
• New Article List December 2008
• Article list, mostly religion (Being updated)

[ Homepage ] [ Deism ] [ Christianity in America ] [ Debunking Islam ]
[ Article List ] [ Sullivan County, TN ] [ Bristol VA/TN ]

[ Killing Children ] [ George Bush Defends Saudi Terrorism ] [ Islamic Fascism ]
[ Palestine Myth ] [ Arlene Peck on Arabs ] [ Muslim Immigration Must be Halted ]