Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Prescription-pill pipeline from Florida to Appalachia branches into the Bluegrass

The plague of prescription drug abuse in Appalachia has spread to Kentucky's Bluegrass region. So indicates the latest in a series of stories in The Winchester Sun about drug problems in Clark County, just east of Lexington. (It's in "official Appalachia," but is much more a Bluegrass county.)

"Officers from both the Winchester Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office said they rarely see illegal drugs in the county. Instead, law enforcement agencies are fighting that never-ending battle against prescription drugs, such as Oxycodone," Rachel Parsons reports.

Winchester officer Tom Beall told Parsons that the main source of the drugs is the same as in much of Appalachia -- people who travel to Florida to get prescriptions and pills from pain clinics and pharmacies that are lightly regulated. “Cocaine and morphine was bad, but nothing is bad like these oxycodone 30s. This is terrible,” Beall said. “It would not be unlikely for us to start six investigations buying narcotics in a day’s time.” (Read more)

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