[Timpanagos1]

“Yes a lot of “junkies” were going there but so were a lot of people in real chronic pain. It’s quite possible that some of the people who were in real pain are now turning to the cheaper street heroin because they can’t get what they had and/or can’t afford the meds they need. I can see this. It’s not their fault the junkies hurt the real pain sufferers (no pun intended)’

Yes, some people have chronic pain, but the distribution of chronic pain sufferers should be somewhat evenly distributed throughout the country. However, the distribution of opioid addiction is not even throughout the country.

Thus, addition to pain killers is cultural and specific to certain areas around the country. These people are letting themselves become addicted to opioids and becoming junkies.

[steve86]

State laws with respect to opiate dispensing vary a lot. I would not expect to see an even distribution across the country. Other cultural factors do play a role and heroin addiction is increasing everywhere.

[Garth Tater]

Thus, addition to pain killers is cultural and specific to certain areas around the country. These people are letting themselves become addicted to opioids and becoming junkies.

There's nothing like a good job and a good woman to keep a young man heading down the proper path in life. As a 35 year resident of the Huntington W.Va. area I can tell you good jobs are very, very hard to find - and a woman can easily do better on her own with govt assistance than she can hooking up with a man with a minimum wage job.

Yes, drug addiction is a choice but it's a choice most young men would never be in the position to have to make if the factories hadn't been off-shored. Of the five close friends my son had growing up here two are dead from drugs, two have decent jobs and one works in the underground economy. NONE of them were bad kids growing up.