Opioids in West Virginia

My mother is from West Virginia, an area with some of the highest rates of opioid use in the country. It’s a fact that’s known throughout the state, with stray needles and empty pill bottles by the curb being a fairly regular reminder. There is no secrecy, my grandmother tells us about the new doctor who’s been caught writing prescriptions in exchange for money every time we visit. My mother will respond about a childhood story about them, informing us whether it was a pity because he’d been so nice or if he was rotten from the start. It’s a sad reality that has been normalized as a new case is just around the corner.

The ones to blame for this drug epidemic are not your typical “drug dealers”. They are three large pharmaceutical companies who want their product prescribed as much as possible. They hold events and invite doctors to attend while they brag about their wonder pills. The pills then get prescribed like Tylenol and the consequences ravage the communities. One county saw an almost 1300% increase in overdoses from 2001 to 2017. A small town of 3,200 people were shipped 20.8 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills over a decade period. The companies saw that as a thriving market, a success, not the dark story those numbers truly tell. Recently these small towns have been trying to make a legal case against these companies for poisoning them but if an earlier ruling in July is any indication, these companies are likely to not be held accountable for their predatory tactics. Who’s job is it to monitor and regulate the distribution of these known addictive substances?