Tag: Drug Abuse

Appalachia Receives Annual $10 Million Allocation To Stop Drug Trafficking

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy announced $9.9 million in funding for the Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Program.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy announced $9,996,950 in funding for the Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Program.

The HIDTA program supports federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the U.S. There are currently 33 HIDTAs and HIDTA-designated counties located in 50 states, as well as in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia.

“Our funding provides for drug initiatives in the four states [included in the Appalachia HIDTA],” Chad Napier, West Virginia’s HIDTA coordinator, said. “And so the $10 million is split out amongst those initiatives. They mainly fund overtime for narcotics investigators, full-time narcotics investigators that are co-located within initiatives.”

The Appalachia HIDTA is made up of 51 initiatives throughout four states: Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. There are 15 initiatives in West Virginia.

“West Virginia leads the nation and the drug overdose death rate,” Napier said. “And so obviously, we’re always trying to allocate for more funding, just address those issues.”

The funds will support programs across the country to hold drug traffickers accountable, seize illicit drugs like fentanyl, and prevent and reduce gun violence and other violent crimes associated with drug trafficking.

W.Va. City Forms Drug Trafficking Task Force

A West Virginia city is getting a new task force to combat drug trafficking organizations.

The Huntington Police Department on Tuesday announced a partnership with the federally-funded Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

The task force will include special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It will also work with the Drug Enforcement Administration and federal prosecutors.

The Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program will fund the $97,000 task force and help train officers.

Huntington Police Chief Hank Dial says the partnership will work toward stopping drug and gun-related crimes.

Convicted Former W.Va. Pharmacist Fined in Pill Case

A former West Virginia pharmacist convicted in state court of improperly dispensing medications has been fined $336,000 in federal court.

Federal prosecutors say a judge in Wheeling imposed the penalty against 50-year-old David M. Wasanyi.

Prosecutors say Wasanyi worked as a pharmacist in Martinsburg and Charles Town and violated federal law when he filled nearly 1,200 prescriptions for controlled substances for patients who traveled from as far away as Florida. Many of the prescriptions were written for oxycodone.

Wasanyi was sentenced twice in state court in 2016 for delivery of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to up to 11 years for one conviction and up to 75 years for another.

West Virginia Apartments to House Women in Drug Treatment

Renovations have started on a building that will become apartments for women undergoing treatment for substance abuse in West Virginia.

Marshall University said in a news release Monday its health provider group, Marshall Health, and the Huntington City Mission have begun construction on the 15,000-square-foot building next to the mission.

Each of the 18 apartments will consist of up to three bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room and kitchenette. They will enable women suffering from substance abuse to live with their children.

A grant from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources is funding the program, called Project Hope for Women and Children. Marshall School of Medicine spokeswoman Sheanna Spence said the $2.8 million grant covers renovations and program expenses.

The statement says some services, including family therapy, will be provided on site while many others such as medication-assisted treatment will be in outpatient locations. The renovations are expected to be completed by October.

The project “will help residents put life skills into practice, give their children a sense of stability and teach them to raise their children in a way that promotes healthy habits early on,” said Dr. Stephen M. Petrany, chairman of the Marshall School of Medicine’s department of family and community health.

In a state of 1.8 million residents, more than 30,000 people are in drug treatment in West Virginia, which has the nation’s highest drug overdose death rate.

Raid Nets Dozens Accused in Huntington Drug Trafficking Network


More than 40 people were arrested in Huntington this week on drug and gun charges in a sweeping joint investigation targeting accused interstate drug traffickers in what officials called a “turning point” for the city — and “in the war against the opiate nightmare.”
 

 
Authorities said they think their work will ultimately break down a “major” drug network that has moved heroin, fentanyl and cocaine from Detroit to Huntington for almost 15 years. Nearly 50 more people were “targeted for arrest” on various charges in an effort involving more than 200 federal, state and local law enforcement officers. Those accused of roles in the “Peterson” drug trafficking organization — named for two brothers — also face charges in Detroit, officials said. 

 
“Huntington, I believe, is a safer city today than it was when this day began,” Mike Stuart, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, said at a press conference Tuesday.

“Project Huntington” began last month when what Stuart called a “surge of federal prosecutors” arrived in West Virginia’s second-largest city to round up suspected drug dealers selling heroin and fentanyl, the powerful opiate often laced with heroin. 

Huntington’s crime rate soared in 2017, and Cabell County led the state in the number of fatal overdoses for the second year in a row, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
 

Early Tuesday, helicopters hovered the skies above Huntington. Guyandotte Elementary was placed on lockdown “as a precaution” after seeing police presence in the neighborhood, said Jedd Flowers, spokesman for Cabell County Schools. He said the school system was not notified in advance of raids by agencies involved and that the county school board did not call for lockdowns. 

 

Officials seized at least 450 grams of fentanyl — enough “to kill more than 250,000 people,” Stuart said.

The arrest “have resulted in the destruction of a supply network, the supplier of suppliers of illicit drugs,” he said in the news release. “The peddlers of poisons like heroin and fentanyl are in the crosshairs of this Administration and law enforcement. We still have work to do but the days of havoc, chaos and misery caused by the peddlers of illicit poisons are soon to be over.”

 


Federal, state and local law enforcement officials attended the press conference.

Judge Urges Action on '100 Percent Manmade' Opioid Crisis

A federal judge on Tuesday likened the nation’s opioid epidemic to the deadly 1918 flu pandemic while noting the drug crisis is “100 percent manmade.”

Judge Dan Polster urged participants on all sides of lawsuits against drugmakers and distributors to work toward a common goal of reducing overdose deaths. He said the issue has come to courts because “other branches of government have punted” it.

The judge is overseeing more than 180 lawsuits against drug companies brought by local communities across the country, including those in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Municipalities include San Joaquin County in California; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Huntington, West Virginia.

Polster said the goal must be reining in the amount of painkillers available.

“What we’ve got to do is dramatically reduce the number of pills that are out there, and make sure that the pills that are out there are being used properly,” Polster said during a hearing in his Cleveland courtroom. “Because we all know that a whole lot of them have gone walking, with devastating results.”

The judge said he believes everyone from drugmakers to doctors to individuals bear some responsibility for the crisis and haven’t done enough to stop it.

The government tallied 63,600 overdose drug deaths in 2016, another record. Most of the deaths involved prescription opioids such as OxyContin or Vicodin or related illicit drugs such as heroin and fentanyl. The epidemic is the most widespread and deadly drug crisis in the nation’s history.

Hundreds of lawsuits filed by municipal and county governments could end up as part of the consolidated federal case overseen by Polster, but others are not likely to.

Some government bodies, including Ohio and at least nine other states, are suing the industry in state courts. Additionally, most states have joined a multistate investigation of the industry that could end up sparking a settlement or yet more litigation against the industry.

Targets of the lawsuits include drugmakers such as Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, and Purdue Pharma, and the three large drug distribution companies, Amerisource Bergen, Ohio-based Cardinal Health and McKesson. Drug distributors and manufacturers named in these and other lawsuits have said they don’t believe litigation is the answer but have pledged to help solve the crisis.

Polster said the nation is running the risk of seeing average U.S. life expectancy diminish three years consecutively thanks to the epidemic, something that hasn’t happened since the 1918 flu killed thousands.

“This is 100 percent manmade,” Polster said. “I’m pretty ashamed that this has occurred while I’ve been around.”

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