She had loving parents. She had a high school degree. She was 19 and plotting her next move in life. Five years later, Beth was walking a seedy stretch of Sixth Avenue in Huntington and Amber was watching her back while car after car slowed down to check them out. She convinced me there was a freedom in it. By that point, Beth said she had already traded sex for drugs with several dealers. Beth, as well as Amber's family, asked that they not be identified by their full names to protect their privacy.
And within minutes, a potential john pulled over. No place in America has been hit harder by the opioid epidemic than West Virginia. And no place in America was less prepared for the onslaught.
Already grappling with the loss of thousands of coal mining jobs, stagnant growth and an exodus of young people in search of opportunities elsewhere, the Mountain State was a sitting duck when Big Pharma began pumping prescription painkillers into the state.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is now investigating the pharmaceutical companies and distributors who they say turned West Virginia into the epicenter of the crisis. Nationwide, opioids figured in two-thirds of the 63, fatal overdoses reported in , according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some struggling small cities like Williamson population 3, were swamped with an astounding 6, pills per person over a decade , creating a new generation of addicts and further fraying the already torn social fabric.
The epidemic also drove many desperate women, as well as some men, into the street for cash, lawmakers and police said. Matt Meadows, probation officer in Huntington. While some women in West Virginia choose sex work, others are victims of sex trafficking, forced into prostitution against their will.
