| By Bob Weaver
West Virginia has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the USA, according to a new report.
The state is likely the recipient of more pharmaceuticals than most states, many shipped to a number of so-called "pill mills."
West Virginia's drug overdose death rate was more than double the national average.
While rural West Virginian's favorite drug is legal alcohol, the pharmaceutical drugs, obtained illegally or "legally" is a primary choice, followed by home-made meth, crack cocaine, and cheap heroin.
Meth is the poor addicts fix, an addiction whose recovery rate is low.
Alcoholism is a slower death, but nonetheless destructive to families, employment and domestic violence.
The state has long relied to arresting addicts under WV Code, ending with the state having one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation for non-violent offenders.
West Virginia's festering drug abuse problem is also fueling a rise in hepatitis C.
There were about 34 drug overdose deaths per 100,000 West Virginia residents from 2011-13, up dramatically from 22 deaths per 100,000 people in 2007-09, according to the nonprofit groups Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The reasons vary, but they are intertwined, said Dr. Rahul Gupta, West Virginia's state health officer. He cited the impoverished region's history of poor education, along with the isolation of people and communities in its rugged, mountainous terrain.
Despite a number of initiatives, there are few longer term treatment programs in the state, mostly medical and legal intervention, although they are described as treatment programs.
Success in getting local addicts in longer term centers has been difficult.
Gupta said West Virginia has seen 3,000 drug overdose deaths in the past five years â an average of 600 per year.
In Cabell County alone this year, there were at least 32 overdose deaths and 360 drug overdoses, including heroin and prescription drugs.
But West Virginia's drug woes reflect a national trend.
The report said drug overdose deaths have more than doubled in the past 14 years nationally and have resulted in 44,000 deaths per year, half of which are prescription-drug related.
In West Virginia, two government agencies have an ongoing lawsuit seeking to unseal court records about drug shipments from 11 pharmaceutical distributors.
Those companies have fought the release of the information.
The lawsuit alleges that the companies have helped fuel the state's pain pill epidemic by shipping excessive amounts of prescription painkillers to Southern West Virginia pharmacies.
Authorities have cracked down on some doctors who run "pill mills."
The Charleston Daily Mail reports that a Clarksburg pain doctor was sentenced last month to five years in prison. A 2010 FBI raid shut down a Williamson clinic and resulted in six-month prison sentences for two physicians and an office manager for misusing Drug Enforcement Administration registration numbers.
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