Reporter Matt Lakin and photographer Michael Patrick's "Pill Sick: The series."
Tennessee's most damaging drugs now come from a pharmacy safe instead of a street corner. Prescription narcotics initially dispensed under the control of doctors and druggists dominate most deals on the street.
An investigation by the News Sentinel found:
- Pills prescribed to relieve anxiety and chronic pain have mostly replaced crack, methamphetamine and heroin among hard-core drug addicts. Dealers boast of profits higher than 2,000 percent.
- A new generation of dealers has replaced the stereotypical drug pusher with faces as familiar as the grandpa next door.
- Prescription drugs of every kind pour daily across state lines into East Tennessee. A doctor's signature translates into a license to carry pills.
- New time-release formulas meant to prevent abuse of painkillers haven't stopped addicts. They simply switch to new drugs and new methods.
- A statewide task force relies on a volunteer staff and zero public funding to coordinate training and support for overworked local agencies.
- Accidental drug overdoses almost all due to abuse of prescription drugs have become a leading cause of death across East Tennessee, dwarfing homicide and car wrecks and rivalling natural causes in some communities. Dealers who provide the deadly dose typically go unpunished.
- Rural East Tennessee counties consistently report higher drug-induced death rates than cities 20 times their size do. Local coroners and medical examiners believe even those numbers undercount deaths due to flaws in the state's reporting methods.
- Millions of dollars spent on drug-prevention education haven't stopped teenagers and younger children from experimenting with narcotics. Some kids get their first high from pills stolen out of Mom's medicine cabinet.
- Babies born addicted to painkillers crowd hospital maternity wards, creating new challenges for doctors in an unexplored field and new dilemmas for parents still hooked on the same drugs.
Pill Sick: The series
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/nov/02/pillpromo/
Day One
Day Two
Day Three