HEY!!! WE MADE THE MAP AGAIN!!!! lol

[cityofRaven 2,450]

well if anybody gets the chance pick up a TIME magazine sometime this week and read all about Tazewell co. and its famous drug problem. im so proud

[bluekick 11]

Here's a link to the article.

[Beamerball 566]

LOL....now instead of Lee county being the OC capital, it's Tazewell County who takes over as king of Oxy's.

[beaverbaseball 10]

i really wouldn't be to happy about that LOL

[wavefan64 10]

[ QUOTE ]

LOL....now instead of Lee county being the OC capital, it's Tazewell County who takes over as king of Oxy's.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

I think Buchanan County has them both beat...Heck, you can go to the denist's office and get Meth or some Hillbilly Heroin...lol

[BigD4VT 11]

Growing up in Richlands I never had to worry about crime. There was no drug problem. The only thing you had to protect your lawnmowers, motorcycles, bicycles, ect. from was the weather. If you went away and forgot to lock your doors it wasn't a big deal. Even if someone did try to break-in your neighbors would see them and call the cops. Now it might be the neighbors that break-in.

 

I moved to Richmond in 1986. When we got to our new home the first thing that jumped out at me was the fact that the front door had two deadbolts. I had never seen a door with even one deadbolt. The house back in Richlands could be opened with a credit card.

 

During the twelve years I lived in Richmond I was carjacked at gunpoint, had an amplifier stolen from my car, and my dad's van was stolen and wrecked. I love Richmond, I have a lot of friends there, but I wanted to come back to Richlands to get away from all the crime. I got tired of counting 9mm gunshots when I went to bed at night.

 

When I came back to Richlands in 1998 I couldn't beleive how thing's had changed. I had never even heard of Oxy-Contin. Tazewell County had one of the lowest crime rates in the state when I left. Now the jails are filled to three times capacity? BB is right. This isn't something to be pround of. It's something to be ashamed of. And something to be very concerned about.

[BigBlue02 11]

Sad thing is that its only going to get worse before it gets better. I was reading the paper the other day,I seen former off and on again football player Josh Evans had been arrested for possesion of Morphine. I mean come on look at what its doing to my generation and the many before me. I think we as citizens of SWVA need to step it up and get rid of the problem before it takes over completely.

[BigD4VT 11]

I agree, but how do you get rid of it?

[BigBlue02 11]

Thats the sad part you can't get rid of it. Drug abuse has been around sence God knows when,we just got to grin and bear it so to speak. I'm just waiting to see how many more people I know end up in the news for drug indictments.

[Lance 228]

Ok I copied the article here just for archival purposes...please visit the link so Time get's their advertising money and all that happy stuff.

 

Enjoy....

 

 

Society

Prescription for Crime

Illegal pills have sparked a wave of thefts and criminality that rural towns just can't handle

By REX BOWMAN/TAZEWELL

 

 

 

Monday, Mar. 28, 2005

Folks in Tazewell County know they better keep their eyes open, their toolsheds locked and their barn doors shut. Junkies, addicted to prescription pills and looking for anything to steal to pay for their next fix, have turned this 520-sq.-mi. patch of Appalachian Virginia--a bucolic tangle of wooded mountains, steep hills and rolling pastures dotted with sagging barns and country churches--into a society plagued by pilferers. They swipe guns from unlocked cabinets and push motorcycles out of garages in the dead of night. They swap or sell stolen watches, lawn mowers and sneakers for potent painkillers like OxyContin.

 

The drug first became a problem in Tazewell in 1998, but its national reach is well known, ensnaring even radio impresario Rush Limbaugh in a scandal that sent him into rehab. Around the nation, the statistics tell the story. A Jan. 21, 2005, report from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that the number of people who had used oxycodone, the main ingredient in OxyContin, for nonmedical reasons jumped from 11.8 million in 2002 to 13.7 million in 2003. The increase happened even though OxyContin's maker stopped distributing its strongest pill, the 160-mg tablet, in 2001 and more states began prescription-monitoring programs to detect abusers who go from doctor to doctor looking for pills. In December the Drug Enforcement Administration announced a toll-free number to report the illegal sale of prescription drugs.

 

Federal authorities are at a loss to explain why prescription-pill abuse pops up in some places and not in others, and why places like central Maine, eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia--where OxyContin abuse first emerged as a problem--are awash in drug-related crime. But Sheriff H.S. Caudill says a clue to how it all began in Tazewell lies in one of the original nicknames for OxyContin: coal miner's cocaine. Retired miners with back injuries were among the first in the area to use the powerful drug, and as word of its effectiveness spread, abusers began diverting it, selling it for up to $1 per mg, Caudill says. "We're seeing a lot of elderly people dealing drugs," he says. "A lot of people are retired or on disability, and they think, Well, if Paw-paw can sell his pills, that's $2,400. And if Maw-maw can sell hers, that's $4,800." Census Bureau data support Caudill's notion: 12,481 of the county's 44,362 residents claim some sort of disability. If coal miners gave OxyContin its start in southwestern Virginia, injured steelworkers were among the first to use it in eastern Ohio, where its illicit use remains a serious problem, says Jennifer Bolen, a former federal prosecutor in Tennessee who advises physicians around the country on the laws governing the prescription of potent painkillers.

 

It has taken seven years for the full measure of the pill's stranglehold on Appalachian counties like Tazewell to become obvious--in clogged and crowded courts, in villages whose jails are so full that inmates sleep on the floor, and in neighborhoods focused on leaving nothing valuable lying around. The number of robberies, burglaries and thefts has shot up 48% in Tazewell in only five years, from 483 crimes in 1998 to 716 in 2003, even as the national property-crime rate fell 25%. "People are stealing anything that's not nailed down," says county commonwealth's attorney Dennis Lee. Testimony in a recent trial in Tazewell revealed that one man was so desperate for OxyContin, he traded his mule for four tablets.

 

Until lately the county was known for little more than its coal mines and crooked roads. While it's true that leaders staged a fistfight in 1800 to determine where to place the county seat--the town of Tazewell (pop. 4,100) was the winner--residents like to point up their law-and-order quietness with the story of how they once put a cow in jail because they could not tolerate the clanging bell. Now the county's crime woes have made it a case study in how prescription-pill abuse has stressed a judicial system to the breaking point, overwhelming cops, sheriffs, prosecutors and judges.

 

A typical night finds 230 to 250 inmates, most of them sleeping on mattresses on the floor, in the county's 89-bed jail on Tazewell's Main Street. Last year the county spent $132,000 to send its overflow of inmates to other jails. Nearly 1,100 people are on probation for felony convictions in Tazewell. Probation officers handle an average of 120 offenders each; a decade ago the average was 60. Ten years ago, grand juries that indicted two dozen people were considered especially zealous. Now grand juries indict 120 people at a time, mostly Tazewell residents, says Lee. Eighty percent of the crimes involve people stealing for drug money. The local sheriff's department is woefully understaffed, and the five-attorney prosecutor's office needs three more lawyers to meet state standards.

 

Though Tazewell has been particularly hard-hit, drug-related crime is booming across all of Virginia's coalfields. According to state crime data gathered by the FBI, from 1998 to 2003 the number of robberies, burglaries and larcenies jumped 131% in neighboring Buchanan County, 44% in Wise County, 62% in Lee County and 102% in Russell County. In Buchanan, where the jail typically holds more than twice the 34 inmates it was built to accommodate, the sheriff's department was so bogged down with drug-related crime that it dropped out of a four-county drug task force in order to concentrate on its own problems. In Lee, which has the same jail-crowding problem as Buchanan, local authorities have called on federal prosecutors to help take prescription-pill abusers off the street. The feds can use their power to charge abusers with crimes that carry more stringent penalties. In this rural Appalachian region, which is underserved by doctors, seven physicians have been convicted of overprescribing painkillers over the past five years.

 

State and local officials are building institutions virtually overnight to grapple with pill-related crime. Three regional jails are set to open this spring to ease inmate overcrowding in the state's Appalachian corner, and the Virginia general assembly recently appointed another circuit judge to help Tazewell. Also, the legislature has begun exploring an expansion of southwestern Virginia's prescription-monitoring program statewide, allowing state police and physicians to detect patients who go doctor shopping. In Tazewell, authorities are applying a big-city solution to their rural problem. They recently began a drug court dedicated to drug cases, where young narcotics offenders receive intensely monitored probation. And Lee has been appointed a special U.S. Attorney, giving him the power to prosecute weapons-for-drugs cases in federal court--a statute that doesn't exist on Virginia state books--where convictions carry a minimum penalty of five years in prison. Says Tazewell sheriff's captain Clarence Tatum: "If we could get rid of Oxy and all the related drugs, we'd wipe out 75% of the crime in this county."

 

In Tazewell, the pill-induced crime wave started insidiously and then changed everything. Jerry Turley, a pharmacist, says it begins with people "sneaking into their grandmother's drawers and stealing stuff." But Connie Dye, whose nephew was convicted of robbing a pharmacy, says the situation has deteriorated to the point where "we've put dead bolts on our door. We even put a lock on our gate." For many Tazewell residents, that is the most tangible evidence that their way of life has quickly been lost.

[TheAlpha 10]

[ QUOTE ]

Growing up in Richlands I never had to worry about crime. There was no drug problem. The only thing you had to protect your lawnmowers, motorcycles, bicycles, ect. from was the weather. If you went away and forgot to lock your doors it wasn't a big deal. Even if someone did try to break-in your neighbors would see them and call the cops. Now it might be the neighbors that break-in.

 

I moved to Richmond in 1986. When we got to our new home the first thing that jumped out at me was the fact that the front door had two deadbolts. I had never seen a door with even one deadbolt. The house back in Richlands could be opened with a credit card.

 

During the twelve years I lived in Richmond I was carjacked at gunpoint, had an amplifier stolen from my car, and my dad's van was stolen and wrecked. I love Richmond, I have a lot of friends there, but I wanted to come back to Richlands to get away from all the crime. I got tired of counting 9mm gunshots when I went to bed at night.

 

When I came back to Richlands in 1998 I couldn't beleive how thing's had changed. I had never even heard of Oxy-Contin. Tazewell County had one of the lowest crime rates in the state when I left. Now the jails are filled to three times capacity? BB is right. This isn't something to be pround of. It's something to be ashamed of. And something to be very concerned about.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

Excellent post. I could get into my house in Richlands with a card when I was locked out ... or crawl through a window. My parents have since went on lock down so to speak because of the crime. It is amazing how their normal behaviors have changed since I moved away. They are not how I remember when I was younger. They now have deadbolts on every door and my dad passes on leaving a gun behind the 'fridge -- metallic, fire-proof safe for all firearms. There are locks on everything it seems. Unfortunately, the same preventions one would take if living in the city.

 

Moving to Richmond was a culture shock for this country boy. I'm lucky I can afford to live outside the city; however you are never removed from the conditions of the city. Thankfully, I don't work there.

 

And your last couple of sentences sum it up better than I could articulate.

[cityofRaven 2,450]

well im with u big D, i grew up from birth till age 10 living in the great villas known as Oxford Sq. Apts. and before i moved in to raven that place wasnt half as bad as it is now, now u can walk anywhere in the richlands area and get any kind of drug u want its kinda sad how fast this has all poped up

[Lance 228]

don't want to point any fingers for obvious reasons, but uhmmm...hmmm...how to say this and not get run out of town...

 

"the animals are running the zoo" so to speak...Grundy already dealt with one of these types of problems a few years ago....but there is a lot more to be done...sadly.

[cityofRaven 2,450]

yeah im with u, its said to bad mouth all the honest business ppl in richlands, but there are alot of "behind closed doors" deals going down by well respected ppl everyday

[Lance 228]

you know the majority of the people are good upstanding citizens who want what everyone else wants...a nice safe place to call home...there are a few who don't see it that way though and those need to be dealt with...and putting everyone in jail is not the answer...

 

The latest and greatest is house arrest or the monitor collars...they charge people like $300 a month or something for that.

 

The problem is not the people using it, it's the people providing it...you cut that off and you solve the rest of the problems...does anyone here not know someone ho has died of this? I know I do...I'd bet most of us do...only takes once with this crap and you can die. Until they figure out a way to slow the supply there will always be a problem...i'd say just outlaw it or make it very very hard to get a legit perscription for...not everyone who gets the stuff needs a pain killer of this level...that's where you start.

[BigBlue02 11]

I remember Oxford squares before allthe drug dealing and stuff. Like you said Helton it wasn't half bad until all this stuff started. It just seems like all of Richlands and the surrounding area is turning in to one big ghetto.

[hhstigerfan 12]

This is terrible. Before they had that big drug sting in Honaker last year, you could go to New Garden pharmacy on pay day and see license plates from West Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, it was crazy how many people were coming up here for drugs. There would be people out in the parking lot in lawn chairs having a kind of get together I guess, waiting to go in and get their drugs.

[cityofRaven 2,450]

yeah my dad used to go to the doctor down there in that little complex out from the old rid-aid and i went with him one 3rd of the month and it looked like a big carnival was going on

[cityofRaven 2,450]

yeah dude oxy sq. didnt used to be that way, when i was little it was sin city, hell i grew up playing football with guys who just got out of jail lol and they were pretty cool guys, no dope heads were there then, now you couldnt throw a dead cat without hitting a druggie now!

[BigD4VT 11]

It probably kills any chance the county has at bringing in new jobs. The one thing this region has always had going for it is it's people but now that we have a national reputation for Oxycontin abuse...Who would want to put a factory here?

[RichlandsAlum 678]

Where to begin? How about this little factoid:

 

"12,481 of the county's 44,362 residents claim some sort of disability"

 

That is absolutely beyond pathetic. The thing that's most telling is that's the number for the entire population. If we can assume that 20% of the populace is under the age of 18, then the percentage of the "workforce" that's disabled must be substantially higher. Whomever is processing all of those claims needs to be horse whipped. I'm sure that Ginger Branton and her counterparts are thrilled about that statistic. In fact, I can already envision the slogan:

 

<font color="green"> Locate your business here in Tazewell County. 65% of us are actually able to work.</font>

[BigD4VT 11]

I am disabled. I have a severe anxiety/panic disorder, a liver disorder, thyroid disorder, early diabetes, I'm sometimes anemic, and now they tell me I have emphyzema. If anyone questions whether my disability is real I can give them a list of eight doctors (not counting ER doctors) that I have seen over the past five years. But even with all of that, the strongest drug I take is a beta blocker for Hypertension and Tachycardia. I agree though that many "disabled" people in this county are plenty able to work, but I can promise you if they are getting disability they were at one time disabled according to Social Security. It's not easy to get, but it's not realy hard to keep. I would guess that many of them had a real disability that has improved to the point where they could work, but are still getting disability because the system isn't as good as it needs to be. Of course if they could work....where would they work?

[RichlandsAlum 678]

[ QUOTE ]

Of course if they could work....where would they work?

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

Chicken and egg thing there. I realize that the job situation isn't the best, but if you're an individual investor, are you going to put your $$$ in a place where only 1 in 3 people are even able to work?

 

I appreciate your personal point of view, although I didn't particularly mean to call anyone out. However, I would refute the claim that disability is "not easy to get." The fact that 1 in 4 members of the entire population are claiming disability is extremely signficant no matter how you spin it.

[Lance 228]

another thing is that there is a growing "elderly" population in this area...a lot of the people who are here have retired...the younger generation moves on to better places to find jobs right out of high school...I'd say a lot of the people here that are disabled are up there in age.

[RichlandsAlum 678]

I shouldn't have interjected politics into this discussion. Lord knows I'm bad to steer threads off onto tangents as it is.

 

I'm guessing that Tazewell's numbers are pretty comparable to the rest of the region. And that's probably an issue that the powers-that-be are working on.