BREATHITT GROUP HELPS CUT DRUG OVERDOSES

Until a few months ago, Breathitt County often led Kentucky in a sad
statistic: deaths due to prescription-drug overdose.

Between January 2003 and May, Breathitt had 40 methadone-related overdose
deaths - including 13 in December alone.

"It just came to a point where we had to do something," said Ron Hamblin,
editor of breathittonlinenews.com in Jackson. Hamblin was among a handful
of residents who held a public meeting early this year and invited anyone
who wanted to talk about the county's drug problem.

"Something like 150 people showed up, which was just amazing," said Karen
Bunn, who would later be named chairwoman of the local anti-drug group,
UNITE Coalition.

Getting results

County Coroner Bobby Thorpe organized a neighborhood watch program, and he
and others helped U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers' office coordinate formation of a
local chapter of the federally funded UNITE Coalition task force.

"We were averaging one overdose a week this year - up until July when we
started the program - and as of this week it's been three months since
there's been an overdose death in this county," Thorpe said. "The only
thing I can attribute it to is this coalition."

Drug arrests have increased as more public pressure has been brought to
bear on the drug issue, and Thorpe said many local doctors and pharmacists
are more closely monitoring prescriptions for the synthetic narcotic
methadone, which is often used to treat heroin addiction.

Since the crackdown on abuse of the prescription painkiller OxyContin,
trafficking in methadone has increased in many areas. From January 2003 to
May, a survey of coroners indicated, nearly 350 Kentuckians died of
methadone overdoses.

"If you've never seen someone overdose on drugs, I hope you never have to,"
Thorpe said. "They foam at the mouth. It's terrible. And then you have to
see families go through that trauma of losing somebody to drugs. I've had
so many young kids who've had parents there dead, and they wind up finding
the body."

Gaining steam

Support for the anti-drug movement has been growing steadily in Breathitt
since coalition members have taken their message into schools, churches,
private homes and the streets. Last Sunday, about 800 people from around
the county of 16,000 showed up for a UNITE Coalition anti-drug march. Now
there is talk of establishing a drug treatment center.

"I think the public has so mistrusted elected officials for so long that
they've just sat back and said for a while, 'Nothing's going to change,'"
Thorpe said. "But now we've got some people locally that are not afraid to
tell it how it is - and more people are getting involved.

"Before, they were afraid that they were going to get burned out and
everything. But it's like that preacher from Clay County said at the
meeting the other day - 'They can't burn us all out.'"

For more information on the Breathitt County Unite Coalition, check online
at http://www.breathittunitecoalition.com.