Pubdate: Sun, 01 Aug 2004 Source: Sunday Gazette-Mail (WV) Copyright: 2004, Sunday Gazette-Mail Contact: http://sundaygazettemail.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1404 Author: Tara Tuckwiller Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone) ONLY 34 PAINKILLER ADDICTS IN W.VA.? 81 percent of drug abusers unaccounted for in federal report The latest federal numbers on painkiller abuse in West Virginia would be good news - if they were true. If a federal report released last week was true, only 34 people in the state would have sought treatment for abuse of "other opiates" besides heroin - such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Lortab - at West Virginia drug-treatment facilities in 2002. If it was true, West Virginia would have fewer painkiller addicts in its treatment clinics than any other state. But actually, West Virginia - along with Kentucky, Virginia and some other states - was just vague in the numbers it reported to the federal government. In 81 percent of cases, West Virginia officials didn't identify the specific drug being abused, leaving 5,315 people unaccounted for. (In 2001, West Virginia was able to specify a drug in all but 30 percent of cases.) It's impossible to tell how many of those 5,315 people should have shown up in the pain pill statistics, said Merritt Moore, the state's drug treatment coordinator. "We certainly have more than 34," he said. 'Official data doesn't indicate we have a problem' Maine has the heaviest concentration of narcotic painkiller abusers in treatment, according to the report from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Accordingly, in 2002, when SAMHSA had $500,000 to give away in treatment grants for rural communities with bad oxycodone problems, the money went to Maine, Oregon and Connecticut - all states that reported beefy numbers in the "other opiate" category of addicts in which West Virginia was skimpy. But West Virginia should have had even higher numbers than Maine, if 2003 data are any indication. In 2003 (according to numbers from Moore's office, combined with estimates the methadone industry submitted to lawmakers), West Virginia's concentration of painkiller addicts in treatment would be about 20 percent higher than Maine's. Meanwhile, the number of people seeking treatment for prescription opioid abuse in Kentucky and Virginia - other Appalachian states often associated with the abuse of such drugs - isn't clear. Virginia failed to specify which drug triggered treatment in almost one out of four cases in 2002. Since 2000, Kentucky has not specified which drug triggered treatment in about one-third of the cases it has reported to SAMHSA. But Virginia's and Kentucky's numbers are included in the most recent SAMHSA report, unlike the data from Ohio, which SAMHSA labels "incomplete." Ohio specified the abused drug in 90 percent of its treatment cases. West Virginia is keeping better track this year of which drugs are responsible for what, because the state has hired a private company to do it, Moore said. West Virginia's numbers still don't include the thousands of prescription drug addicts enrolled in private methadone clinics, because the state doesn' t regulate those clinics and won't until next year. "It's tough to educate people about the problem if our official data doesn't indicate we have a problem," Moore said. SAMHSA data is widely cited by media publications and policy-makers. The Office of National Drug Control Policy, which establishes priorities for the war on drugs, relied on it in a February report indicating that in West Virginia, other drugs besides prescription painkillers - including heroin and marijuana - are responsible for more people seeking treatment than are the prescription opioids. The U.S. Justice Department cited SAMHSA data last year in its "Drug Threat Assessment" when it concluded that marijuana "poses a considerable threat to Kentucky and surrounding states" because it pushes 30 percent more abusers to seek help than do prescription drugs. The Justice Department also concluded last year that that "cocaine will remain the principal drug threat to West Virginia." - --- MAP posted-by: Josh