|
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
|
 |
West Virginia Drug Alcohol Addiction Recovery and Treatment Programs and Centers
West Virginia is mainly rural. Its largest drug issues include the abuse and clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine, marijuana use and harvesting, plus pharmaceutical drug diversion and abuse. Cocaine, crack, and Ecstasy are accessible in most regions of West Virginia. Drug distributors in West Virginia are specially positioned to take advantage of supply sources from nearby eastern cities such as Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Washington, DC, and big mid-western cities, including Columbus, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan.
Powder cocaine and crack cocaine are easily accessible in the majority of West Virginia cities. Crack cocaine abuse typically continues to be restricted to low and low-middle income individuals, but expands over all ethnic lines. Rural communities have been dramatically impacted by crack distribution and associated violence. Cocaine accessibility is restricted to large-retail or small-wholesale amounts. Source regions for cocaine are more varied than for other substances used in West Virginia and are more based on the smuggler's location in West Virginia.
Heroin abuse in the central and northern sections of West Virginia grew in 2008. Long-term heroin addicts depend on each other to obtain supplies of heroin from secondary source cities, including Philadelphia and Baltimore. The heroin sold in West Virginia generally maintains the street or brand name and packaging of the Philadelphia or Baltimore-area distributor.
Clandestine meth lab operation in West Virginia, which has been extremely high, declined when state and federal laws regulated precursors sale. Previously, meth manufacture seemed to be centered in the Panhandle area of West Virginia, but has grown to include other regions of northern West Virginia and some clandestine lab sites in the southeastern section of West Virginia bordering Kentucky and Virginia. Further, meth distributors in West Virginia regularly share Mexican supply sources with distributors in the Virginia's Shenandoah Valley area.
Ecstasy abuse in West Virginia continues to fairly concentrated; close to Morgantown, where West Virginia University is located. Demand for Ecstasy in college towns is enough to ensure that thousands of the tablets arrive in West Virginia each month.
Imported and locally cultivated marijuana is a severe drug threat in West Virginia. In 2008, West Virginia was among the top five states for marijuana eradication. West Virginia is frequently a source area for local marijuana. The Appalachia HIDTA was first implemented to fight marijuana harvesting in the tri-state region—Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia—and that quest has grown. Notably, Mexican commercial grade marijuana is still more widely used than locally cultivated marijuana in West Virginia.
According to current investigations, the diversion of oxycodone and hydrocodone products, and methadone and Alprazolam, remains an issue in West Virginia. Main strategies of diversion being cited are illicit sale and distribution by health care professionals and personnel, doctor shopping, employee theft, the Web, and forged prescriptions. In West Virginia, suboxone and Carisoprodol were cited as being novel drugs of pharmaceutical abuse. West Virginia leads the country in methadone-associated deaths, and has the speediest growing rate of methadone overdoses.
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
