ONLY 34 PAINKILLER ADDICTS IN W.VA.?

81 percent of drug abusers unaccounted for in federal report

The latest federal numbers on painkiller abuse in West Virginia would be
good news - if they were true.

If a federal report released last week was true, only 34 people in the state
would have sought treatment for abuse of "other opiates" besides heroin -
such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Lortab - at West Virginia drug-treatment
facilities in 2002.

If it was true, West Virginia would have fewer painkiller addicts in its
treatment clinics than any other state.

But actually, West Virginia - along with Kentucky, Virginia and some other
states - was just vague in the numbers it reported to the federal
government. In 81 percent of cases, West Virginia officials didn't identify
the specific drug being abused, leaving 5,315 people unaccounted for. (In
2001, West Virginia was able to specify a drug in all but 30 percent of
cases.) It's impossible to tell how many of those 5,315 people should have
shown up in the pain pill statistics, said Merritt Moore, the state's drug
treatment coordinator.

"We certainly have more than 34," he said. 'Official data doesn't indicate
we have a problem' Maine has the heaviest concentration of narcotic
painkiller abusers in treatment, according to the report from the federal
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Accordingly, in 2002, when SAMHSA had $500,000 to give away in treatment
grants for rural communities with bad oxycodone problems, the money went to
Maine, Oregon and Connecticut - all states that reported beefy numbers in
the "other opiate" category of addicts in which West Virginia was skimpy.
But West Virginia should have had even higher numbers than Maine, if 2003
data are any indication. In 2003 (according to numbers from Moore's office,
combined with estimates the methadone industry submitted to lawmakers), West
Virginia's concentration of painkiller addicts in treatment would be about
20 percent higher than Maine's.

Meanwhile, the number of people seeking treatment for prescription opioid
abuse in Kentucky and Virginia - other Appalachian states often associated
with the abuse of such drugs - isn't clear.

Virginia failed to specify which drug triggered treatment in almost one out
of four cases in 2002.

Since 2000, Kentucky has not specified which drug triggered treatment in
about one-third of the cases it has reported to SAMHSA. But Virginia's and
Kentucky's numbers are included in the most recent SAMHSA report, unlike the
data from Ohio, which SAMHSA labels "incomplete." Ohio specified the abused
drug in 90 percent of its treatment cases. West Virginia is keeping better
track this year of which drugs are responsible for what, because the state
has hired a private company to do it, Moore said.

West Virginia's numbers still don't include the thousands of prescription
drug addicts enrolled in private methadone clinics, because the state doesn'
t regulate those clinics and won't until next year.

"It's tough to educate people about the problem if our official data doesn't
indicate we have a problem," Moore said.

SAMHSA data is widely cited by media publications and policy-makers. The
Office of National Drug Control Policy, which establishes priorities for the
war on drugs, relied on it in a February report indicating that in West
Virginia, other drugs besides prescription painkillers - including heroin
and marijuana - are responsible for more people seeking treatment than are
the prescription opioids.

The U.S. Justice Department cited SAMHSA data last year in its "Drug Threat
Assessment" when it concluded that marijuana "poses a considerable threat to
Kentucky and surrounding states" because it pushes 30 percent more abusers
to seek help than do prescription drugs.

The Justice Department also concluded last year that that "cocaine will
remain the principal drug threat to West Virginia."