Researchers conclude that pain from working in coal mines, not layoffs (as some think), leads to opioid addiction

Common wisdom holds that opioid abuse has skyrocketed in Appalachian coal-mining areas because of despair from layoffs. "But that may not be the case at all. There is evidence that it was the presence of coal mining jobs that helped create the opioid epidemic, not their absence," Bill Bishop reports for The Daily Yonder.

A newly published study notes that coal mining is physically taxing and dangerous work, and that many coal miners who abuse opioids began using the drug after it was prescribed to them for workplace injuries, Bishop reports.

"The two economists found that as active coal mining jobs decreased in counties, the overdose death rate also declined. The national shift away from coal to natural gas hasn’t set off a drug epidemic in coal counties because of economic despair, the two academics write," Bishop reports. To the contrary, they argue that the shift from coal to natural gas has helped mitigate the opioid epidemic.