OxyContin Settlement Funds Will Benefit Region

A slice of a $19.5 million civil settlement for a drug that has caused addiction and death throughout the region will help local people get off drugs and change their lives.

More than $650,000 in state drug settlement money was recently distributed to three Southwest Virginia agencies that fight prescription drug addiction. The money comes from the larger settlement with Perdue Pharma, the company that made the painkiller OxyContin.

Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, who traveled to Abingdon on Jan. 30 to announce the grants, noted that 228 deaths have been attributed to OxyContin abuse between 1996 and 2007. The drug, if taken correctly, offers extended chronic pain relief. But if it is crushed and snorted, or injected, it gives users a high. In the 1990s, it became a favorite recreational drug, and crime plagued this region due to users who quickly became hooked on this opiate.

Many families continue to struggle with prescription drug addiction. The grants from the settlement with the makers of OxyContin are rightly coming to a region affected by the drug and in need of assistance.

The Appalachian Substance Abuse Coalition for Prevention and Treatment got $200,000 in grant funding. The group is a collection of community service boards, health departments, social services agencies, court personnel and others in Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell, Scott, Tazewell, Lee, Washington and Wise counties and the cities of Norton and Bristol. They will use the money on a media campaign for drug abuse prevention.

The state Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services received about $300,000 in grant funds and will use the money to treat people dependent on opiates, including OxyContin. Some of the money also will be used to extend its Project REMOTE, which already provides treatment to opiate addicts in the region. This settlement money is going directly to a program to address the problem caused by OxyContin. We support it fully.

The third group to receive money was the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, which received $150,000.

On Monday, Division of Mines chief Frank Linkous said DMME is going to use $50,000 in grant funds for drug abuse education across the industry and $100,000 to pay for drug testing and counseling for miners who have tested positive and entered into treatment for addiction. These miners are suspended from work at the point they test positive and have to agree to a formal treatment plan with the Board of Coal Mine Examiners to return to work on a probationary basis. About 240 miners have been suspended from work in the last 15 months, Linkous said.

Drug abuse has become such a problem, and the desire to return to work is so pressing, that the board meets every month to consider cases from miners who have positive drug tests, Linkous said. Eighty people have some type of treatment agreement with the board that allows them to return to work on probation, while also seeking treatment. The grant will help pay for them to have drug screens and counseling.

Linkous said the “overwhelming majority” of miners who test positive have prescription drug addictions, including OxyContin, Lortab and Xanax. “And there is quite a bit of marijuana, also.”

Linkous said he wants to give miners an incentive to stay off drugs by establishing an agreeable treatment plan. This allows them to work while seeking treatment.

The strategy makes more sense than cutting people off from their livelihoods. That can lead to greater depression, financial struggles and desperate behavior. We support this plan, which is tough on the addiction but supportive of the person needing to earn a paycheck. And that Perdue Pharma is footing part of that bill is keenly appropriate.