Overdose deaths from OxyContin, other drugs on the rise again in rural Virginia

Fatal drug overdoses killed 264 people in western Virginia in 2006, a 22 percent increase from last year, reports Laurence Hammack of The Roanoke Times. Those deaths accounted for 40 percent of the state's drug overdoses, even though the region has just 20 percent of the state's population. The 2006 total also represented a 294 percent increase from a decade ago, as prescription drug abuse has become a "public health epidemic," Dr. Martha Wunsch told Hammack.

In recent years, however, federal prosecution had targeted OxyContin and its marketing, and the number of fatal overdoses had stopped climbing between 2003 and 2005, Hammack reports. "Back in the heyday of OxyContin, it had really gotten bad," Richard Stallard, head of the Southwest Virginia Drug Task Force, told Hammack. "But right now, it is the worst I've ever seen it."

In many of these rural areas, the overall population has plateaued or even declined, which makes the growth in overdoses hard to explain, Hammack writes. John Dreyzehner, co-chairman of the Appalachian Substance Abuse Coalition for Prevention and Treatment, told Hammack there is a renewed sense of commitment to stop the problem. "I think if the problem is in the community, the solution is in the community, and I think the community is stepping forward to address the problem," he said. "But that doesn't mean it will happen overnight." (Read more)