FRANKFORT - Sheriff Marvin Lipfird and his deputies rounded up 20 more drug dealers last week in Harlan County and confiscated another load of prescription painkillers destined for Eastern Kentucky's black market. The drug problem, Lipfird said, just doesn't seem to be going away, despite the best efforts of local, state and federal authorities. "We need more personnel," said Lipfird, who has seven deputies helping him patrol an expansive mountain county that has been ravaged by illegal drugs and by increases in other crimes addicts commit to get money to feed their habits. [continues 521 words]
Some Seniors Turn To Dealing Prescription Drugs For Extra Money PRESTONSBURG, Ky. - Dottie Neeley, 87, was fingerprinted, photographed and thrown in jail, imprisoned as much by the tubing from her oxygen tank as by the concrete and steel around her. The woman, who spent two days in jail after her arrest last December, is among a growing number of Kentucky senior citizens charged in a crackdown on a crime authorities say is rampant in Appalachia: Elderly people reselling their painkillers and other medications to addicts. [continues 418 words]
Appalachian Jails Hold More Elderly PRESTONSBURG, Ky. -- After being fingerprinted and photographed, 87-year-old Dottie Neeley sat quietly in the local jail, imprisoned as much by the tubing from her oxygen tank as the concrete and steel surrounding her. Neeley, who sometimes uses a wheelchair, is among a growing number of senior citizens charged in a crackdown on the illegal trade of prescription drugs, a crime that authorities say is rampant in the mountains of central Appalachia. Floyd County jailer Roger Webb said seniors have a ready market for their prescription pills, especially painkillers, and some may be giving in to the temptation of illegally selling their medications. [continues 264 words]
PRESTONSBURG - After being fingerprinted and photographed, 87-year-old Dottie Neeley sat quietly in the local jail, imprisoned as much by the tubing from her oxygen tank as the concrete and steel surrounding her. The elderly woman who sometimes uses a wheelchair is among a growing number of senior citizens charged in a crackdown on the illegal trade of prescription drugs, a crime that authorities say is rampant in the mountains of central Appalachia. Floyd County jailer Roger Webb said seniors have a ready market for their prescription pills, especially painkillers, and some may be succumbing to the temptation of illegally selling their medications. "When a person is on Social Security, drawing $500 a month, and they can sell their pain pills for $10 apiece, they'll take half of them for themselves and sell the other half to pay their electric bills or buy groceries," Webb said. [continues 503 words]
Federal Funds Aid Eastern Kentucky LONDON, Ky. -- Government vouchers would pay for treatment for low-income addicts in drug-ravaged Eastern Kentucky under an initiative unveiled yesterday. The vouchers, paid for with $1.6 million in federal funds from the anti-drug organization UNITE, will be good in either public or private treatment centers and can be used only by people who couldn't otherwise afford treatment, said U.S. Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers, R-5th District. "It's no secret about the epidemic we face," Rogers said. "It's certainly the most devastating scourge that I've seen in my 25 years in Congress." The federally funded UNITE program has resulted in the arrests of about 1,500 street-level drug dealers during the past two years and confiscation of $4.5 million worth of drugs, Rogers said. [continues 220 words]
MIDDLESBORO - Faced with increases in violent crime that came with widespread drug addiction, some of the hardest hit communities in central Appalachia wanted help so badly that they embraced even methadone clinics. No more. Some 300 people, many carrying anti-methadone placards, protested outside Middlesboro City Hall last week, signaling what might be an end to the free pass the clinics have enjoyed in the mountain region since illegal trafficking in the painkiller OxyContin began wreaking havoc about five years ago. [continues 600 words]
MIDDLESBORO, Ky. (AP) - Faced with increases in violent crime that came with widespread drug addiction, some of the hardest hit communities in central Appalachia wanted help so badly that they embraced even methadone clinics. No more. About 300 people, many with anti-methadone placards, protested outside Middlesboro City Hall last week, signaling what may be an end to the free pass that clinics have enjoyed in the mountain region since illegal trafficking in the painkiller OxyContin began wreaking havoc about five years ago. [continues 388 words]
MANCHESTER - If he wasn't at rock bottom, Steve Collett wasn't far from it, shivering inside a portable toilet that served as his shelter on a cold winter's night. Fresh out of jail with nowhere else to go, Collett started praying to Jesus, seeking help from the shambles he had made of his life because of drugs and crime. When daylight arrived, Collett stepped out of that plastic privy into a new day, having made peace and vowing never to return to his old ways. [continues 774 words]
Abuse Adds To Peril In A Setting That's Already Dangerous PINEVILLE - Inspectors responsible for finding loose rocks and malfunctioning equipment inside coal mines now have a different sort of hazard to look out for -- drug addicts. The Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing has for the first time begun training its inspectors to identify miners who might be under the influence. "We realize the drug culture is out there in our society," said Paris Charles, head of the state agency. "So, it stands to reason that it's in the mines also." [continues 290 words]
'The Most ... Devastating Of The Problems We Face' PAINTSVILLE - Christians in drug-ravaged central Appalachia are increasingly reaching out to addicts instead of waiting for government programs to rid the region of what some have described as a scourge. In the latest initiative, the Christian Appalachian Project announced Friday that it plans to invest $1 million to open long-term rehabilitation centers in Eastern Kentucky to help drug abusers to break their addictions. Bill Mills, president of the ministry that has fed and clothed the poor in Appalachia for 40 years, said churches and other Christian organizations are stepping forward to deal with the drug problem. [continues 520 words]
PAINTSVILLE, Ky. -- The Christian Appalachian Project announced yesterday that it plans to invest $1 million to open long-term rehabilitation centers in Eastern Kentucky to help drug abusers break their addictions. Bill Mills, president of the ministry that has fed and clothed the poor in Appalachia for 40 years, said churches and other Christian organizations are stepping forward to deal with the region's drug problem. "Substance abuse is a plague upon our Eastern Kentucky communities," he said. "It is the most dominant and devastating of the problems we face today. We simply are choosing to be part of the solution." While Christian groups support the work of federal and state agencies that are working to combat the drug problem through law enforcement and government-funded treatment centers, the Rev. Doug Abner said they're also looking for ways to be personally involved. [continues 356 words]
FedEx Cites Dangers To Drivers PIKEVILLE (AP) - FedEx has stopped delivering packages from online pharmacies to portions of Eastern Kentucky where prescription drug abuse has become widespread. "We don't tolerate the use of our system for illegal purposes," said Ryan Furby, a spokesman for the global shipping giant based in Memphis, Tenn. Drug dealers and abusers have increasingly turned to ordering prescriptions from unlicensed Internet pharmacies since law enforcement agencies began cracking down on local doctors, sending some to prison for prescribing pills without legitimate medical reasons. [continues 434 words]
$9.5 Million To Go To Treatment Facilities PIKEVILLE - Gov. Ernie Fletcher unveiled a $9.5 million initiative yesterday to help pay for the construction and operation of 10 recovery centers across the state for drug addicts, especially those who are homeless. "We are engaging in a new strategy to overcome drug abuse in Kentucky with the establishment of housing recovery centers," Fletcher said in Pikeville, one of five stops he made yesterday to discuss the plan. Fletcher said he expects two of the recovery centers, part of a program he calls Recovery Kentucky, to be in Eastern Kentucky, where police are combating "an epidemic" of prescription drug abuse. [continues 368 words]
Undercover Agents Buy It From Dealers In Appalachia PIKEVILLE - The generic form of the powerful painkiller OxyContin already is for sale on the black market in Appalachia, even though it's not yet available in pharmacies. Dan Smoot, chief detective for an anti-drug task force in Eastern Kentucky, said undercover narcotics investigators began purchasing the generic drug from street-level dealers earlier this week. Smoot, a retired state police narcotics detective now heading law enforcement for Operation UNITE, said the generic drugs circulating in the mountain region may have been a stolen shipment intended for pharmacies in the region. [continues 419 words]
LONDON, Ky. - The nation's drug czar said yesterday that an anti-drug initiative in Eastern Kentucky could serve as a model for the rest of the nation. John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, made stops in London and Hazard to kick off an anti-drug initiative called Operation UNITE. The program will create regional drug task forces to arrest black market dealers, beef up drug treatment programs and help expand drug education programs. [continues 352 words]
Some physicians recruited to poor region allegedly supplied addicts with medications Pikeville, Ky -- More than a dozen Appalachian doctors, many of them recruited to work in the medically underserved region, have been taken away from their patients in handcuffs for allegedly supplying drug addicts with powerful narcotics. In eastern Kentucky alone, seven small-town doctors are in prison or on their way for illegally prescribing such drugs as the painkiller OxyContin. At least six others have been arrested in the hills of West Virginia, Virginia and southern Ohio. [continues 623 words]
Most of the doctors had been recruited to the region to help care for rural residents. PIKEVILLE, KY. - More than a dozen Appalachian doctors, many of them recruited to work in the medically underserved region, have been taken away from their patients in handcuffs for allegedly supplying drug addicts with powerful narcotics. In eastern Kentucky alone, seven small-town doctors are in prison or on their way for illegally prescribing drugs like the painkiller OxyContin. At least six others have been arrested in the hills of West Virginia, Virginia, and southern Ohio. [continues 314 words]
Doctors Face Drug Charges In Appalachia PIKEVILLE -- A growing list of doctors who were once welcomed with open arms into medically underserved Appalachia have been taken away in handcuffs. In eastern Kentucky alone, seven small-town doctors are in prison or on their way there for illegally supplying drug addicts with prescriptions for powerful narcotics such as OxyContin. At least six others have been rounded up in the hills of West Virginia, Virginia and southern Ohio. Advocates for the mountain region say the loss of so many doctors ordinarily would have left a void. In these cases, they say, the departures can only improve medical care. [continues 944 words]
Communities' Health Outweighs Shortage Of Physicians: Officials PIKEVILLE, Ky. - More than a dozen Appalachian doctors, many of them recruited to work in the medically underserved region, have been taken away from their patients in handcuffs for allegedly supplying drug addicts with powerful narcotics. In eastern Kentucky alone, seven small-town doctors are in prison or on their way for illegally prescribing drugs like the painkiller OxyContin. At least six others have been arrested in the hills of West Virginia, Virginia and southern Ohio. [continues 730 words]
PIKEVILLE, Ky. - More than a dozen Appalachian doctors, many of them recruited to work in the medically underserved region, have been taken away from their patients in handcuffs for allegedly supplying drug addicts with powerful narcotics. In eastern Kentucky, seven small-town doctors are in prison or on their way for illegally prescribing drugs such as the painkiller OxyContin. At least six other doctors have been arrested in the hills of West Virginia, Virginia and southern Ohio. Advocates for the mountain region say that although the loss of so many doctors leaves a void, the departures can only improve medical care. [continues 343 words]
