Letter: Inextricably linked

Published 12:01 am Thursday, December 7, 2017

No state has a higher overdose death rate than West Virginia. West Virginia, not surprisingly, has the third-highest painkiller prescription rate in the country, at 137 prescriptions per 100,000 people, compared to a U.S. rate of just 82.5 prescriptions per 100,000 people. West Virginia, one of poorest states, believes Trump’s false promise to save coal, which causes miners not to seek job reeducation.

Opioid use disorder developed in the 1990s, not with passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) like Republicans pretend. There is no correlation between the Medicaid expansion (ACA) and opioid prescription abuse. The highest opioid prescription rates are in the South, with Kentucky, Alabama, West Virginia and Tennessee at the top. In the states at the top of the list, the prescription rates suggest that many people receive more than one prescription. The top six states for opioid abuse are Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Mississippi. Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Mississippi didn’t expand Medicaid while Kentucky and West Virginia did. Of the top 10, six expanded and four didn’t.

Utah, which didn’t expand Medicaid, is seventh worst among overdose deaths. Twenty-two percent of Utah’s residents have mental health problems, worst in the nation. Among the highest in mental health problems Tennessee ranks ninth, Mississippi ranks sixth and Oklahoma tenth among those that didn’t expand while West Virginia ranks fifth and Kentucky fourteenth among those that did expand. Curiously, Alabama ranks low in mental health problems. This newspaper reported only 4 percent of opioids are bought from drug dealers (strangers) which places the blame on doctors, pharmaceutical companies and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

OIA News reported, at the Reger Funeral Home & Chapel in Huntington, W.Va., owner Patrick Reger says he increasingly sees 50-somethings dying of diseases — like cirrhosis of the liver or lung cancer — that used to mostly kill 80-somethings. Younger people drink heavily and use drugs. “There’s just a lack of employment for people,” he said. “That’s where you find the problems with drugs. There’s nothing to do here.” Nationally, West Virginia is 7 percent educationally behind in job skills.

The Washington Post reported key Republicans were instrumental in preventing the DEA from stopping suspicious opioid shipments. No shipment has been stopped in two years. Why does Kermit, W.Va., population 392, need nine million opioid pills in two years? But, Republicans say free enterprise.

David Bean

Chatsworth