Why does eastern Kentucky have one of the highest murder rates in the country?

[PLATO]

Eastern Kentucky is coal mining territory. Coal Miners are a .....different.... kind of people. My brother used to sell heavy mining machinery and I rode with him a few times. Unbelievably backward area in some places. Once, in the early 80's we came across a community where they had never seen television.

Think Jed Clampett...before the oil strike.

Along with this comes a huge amount of marijuana cultivation and moonshining. Outsiders are usually shot first and then fed to hogs...usually, but ocassionally it will be done in reverse order.

[Dinner]

Let's turn this around. Why, with its huge social safety net, massive police force and highly invasive laws, does Chicago have as high a murder rate as Eastern Kentucky?

The murder rate is actually lower in Chicago than in eastern Kentucky. Yet you'd never know that if you watched Fox News.

[korn469]

I grew up in coal mining country in Virginia. Eastern Kentucky, Southwestern Virginia, and Southern West Virginia are all coal mining areas and are all very similar. If you added in some of Northeast Tennessee and Northwestern North Carolina and made them all a state you'd have Appalachistan. My when I finally moved out of my home county it had the highest rate of property crime in all of Virginia and the neighboring town had the highest murder rate per capita. I'd say the problems come from pills, mostly oxycontin, but people abuse almost every prescription painkiller/anti-anxiety medication there, along with meth, pot, cocaine, and crazy drunks. My home county had 22,000 people living in it and it had three methadone clinics.

In addition to drugs you have high unemployment, lackluster schools, and a brain drain from many people getting the hell out of there as soon as they could. The better question to ask, is why isn't the murder rate higher?

[H Tower]

Eastern Kentucky is coal mining country, but they are hardly mining any coal right now because those bastards in Wyoming can get to theirs for cheaper.

[Guynemer]

korn's got it: it's less about pot, more about oxy and meth.

[The Mad Monk]

The murder rate is actually lower in Chicago than in eastern Kentucky. Yet you'd never know that if you watched Fox News.

Or most other news organizations. The city is more interesting than the country.

[Hauldren Collider]

korn's got it: it's less about pot, more about oxy and meth.

Guynemer, I'm curious, as a doctor, what would you suggest in terms of solving our country's horrifying prescription drug problems?

[Guynemer]

****, man, I'm a pediatrician. The next time I write a Rx for oxy or something similar will be the first.

[regexcellent]

Most of the oxycodone on the illicit market comes from "pain clinics" in Florida. If those were illegal, like they are in every other state, it would be much much harder to get.

Incidentally pot dealers don't go around shooting people that much, not the way meth and crack dealers do.

[giblets]

Develop a drug that eliminates the desire to do drugs.

[Felch]

Most of the oxycodone on the illicit market comes from "pain clinics" in Florida. If those were illegal, like they are in every other state, it would be much much harder to get.

Incidentally pot dealers don't go around shooting people that much, not the way meth and crack dealers do.

Guys dealing eighths and grams don't go around shooting, but anybody who has hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in something, and no legal recourse, has to consider using violence from time to time.

[Hauldren Collider]

In the boonies there probably aren't that many bandits. There's no surer way to attract the attention of the law.

[regexcellent]

Develop a drug that eliminates the desire to do drugs.

[Dr Strangelove]

****, man, I'm a pediatrician. The next time I write a Rx for oxy or something similar will be the first.

Are you kidding? The ER in Lynchburg has absolutrly no qualms about giving a 6 year old with a sore throat Percocet.

[Dr Strangelove]

Most of the oxycodone on the illicit market comes from "pain clinics" in Florida. If those were illegal, like they are in every other state, it would be much much harder to get.

Incidentally pot dealers don't go around shooting people that much, not the way meth and crack dealers do.

You're wrong. Pain clinics are ubiquitous in every state, not that it matters. You can go to the ER, the urgent care or your own PCP and get oxycodone or hydrocodone with virtually no hassle. In fact, the pain clinic will hassle you much more, because they'll probably subject you to a mandatory contract and periodic drug screenings. I'd guess that nearly half of all visits to general practitioners involve a complaint of pain. These days everyone expects narcotic medication. 80% of the world's opiod products are consumed in the United States. 20% of the American population take narcotics routinesly. 40% of the American population will take a narcotic this year. Prescription drugs were responsible for more than 15,000 deaths alst year, 2/3rds of those were from oxycodone and hydrocodone alone. Florida's not the problem.