CORRECTION PAINKILLERS STORY ERRED IN AMOUNT PER ADULT

A front-page article Sunday that described how Eastern Kentucky has led the
nation in narcotics distribution per capita contained a math error that
overstated one illustration of the trend.

Nearly half a ton of legal painkillers reached parts of Eastern Kentucky
from 1998 through 2001, according to federal data. That translates into
about 0.0078 pounds per adult in the area, not "nearly three-quarters of a
pound per adult," as the story reported. A misplaced decimal point had the
effect of overstating the amount of narcotics per adult by a factor of 100.
The area in question included ZIP codes in seven counties, not six.

The errors don't affect the substance of the newspaper's analysis of federal
data, which showed that some Eastern Kentucky areas received more
prescription narcotics per capita than any other place in the nation over
the most recent four-year period for which data are available.