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“THEY MUST BE IN A LOTTA PAIN IN THAT TOWN....................”

If Manchin was your Senator I’m sure you would do everything possible to kill the pain.

If I had to put a bet on this I would say the doctors were ordering the pills, shipping them to out of country pharmacies and bagging some profits.

I was an adult leader for our high school youth group mission trip to Williamson in 2010. It has the claim to fame of being the official home of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, as well as the nation’s largest rail yard specifically purposed for handling coal cars.

Williamson is also grindingly poor. The high school gym looks like something out of “Hoosiers,” having been built back in the 1930s or 1940s. I expected to find Gene Hackman giving a pep talk in the locker room.

Like many places in America, the town was dying as the coal industry that sustained it was being strangled by the 0bama regime. I suspect that things have not gotten better since I was there. So yes, there’s a lot of pain there. A lot of economic pain.

When you have the economic support for these small towns and cities die, and the people have nothing to do, drug abuse naturally follows. Sure, the pharmaceutical companies sent millions of pills there. But it’s also supply and demand; they wouldn’t ship the pills without the demand. And you don’t have the demand for opioids without a doctor willing to write the prescription.

Sadly, we have become what China was in the 1850s. A once great and powerful country rotting from within, due in large part to a drug addicted population. The Chinese managed to cure their opiate problem, but I doubt we have the political will to apply their methodology.

I was born and raised in Williamson. Moved away in 1962 at age 15. Back then, it was a vibrant town of 8,000 in the heart of the coals fields. It was (then) a great place to grow up, families appeared to be strong. I had good memories of it.

Went back in 2007 for a funeral. I was shocked to see the decline citywide. Unkempt homes with many falling apart. Rundown doesn’t begin to describe it. No sense of pride anywhere. I learned from a Catholic priest that it was due to drugs.

Somewhat later I came across an article on the internet discussing the town’s decline and reason why. It painted a very bleak picture. Turned out to be a real Communist Party rag showing the virtues of “capitalism”. A real punch in the gut to read this article.

Sadly, these drugs are decimating cities and towns everywhere. Is this due to Big Pharma’s greed or is there something more sinister here?