Meth brings sea change in addiction treatment, law enforcement in SW Va. - Kingsport Times News
Art Van Zee has dealt with substance abuse treatment in far Southwest Virginia for two decades.
Wise County Commonwealth’s Attorney Chuck Slemp III is in his sixth year of dealing with rising methamphetamine abuse and commercial-scale distribution cases.
Both men agree that meth marks a sea change in drug abuse after years of focus on opioid abuse.
Van Zee became a national figure earlier this century when he helped raise alarms about the marketing and overprescribing of OxyContin.
While prescription opioid abuse has been a problem in Southwest Virginia for years, Van Zee said OxyContin’s promotion by manufacturer Purdue Pharma as a safe, less addictive treatment for chronic pain contributed to a wave of addiction, crime and strain on the region’s substance abuse treatment resources.
However, several factors have helped slow OxyContin abuse in rural Virginia and other rural sections of the U.S., Van Zee said. The General Assembly approved a system for tracking doctors’ opioid prescription activity in the early 2000s. Reporter Beth Macy’s book on opioid abuse (“Dopesick”) helped put a human face on how OxyContin’s marketing contributed to its demand by abusers. Criminal and civil action against Purdue Pharma forced the company into bankruptcy.
Slemp said his early experience included a focus on OxyContin and related cases including a string of prosecutions of doctors overprescribing opioids.
“The prosecutions against the doctors were a success story,” Slemp said, “but meth has become a national border crisis problem with cartel meth traffic into the U.S. and localities.”
In the same period, Van Zee noted, methamphetamine use began climbing as its production shifted from small labs and “one-pot” home cooking to Mexican drug cartels producing and shipping large quantities into the country.
“It became the next drug that came along,” Van Zee said of meth’s rise in Southwest Virginia.
That shift, however, does not represent a change of preference by opioid abusers, Van Zee and Slemp said.
“Many of the meth users we see in courts are young — 18 to 20 years old,” Slemp noted.
Virginia State Police Special Agent Dave Belcher works with the Southwest Virginia Regional Drug Task Force in Wise, Lee and Scott counties and Norton. Of more than $1 million in drug seizures by the task force in the past 12 months, Belcher said methamphetamine accounted for $430,000 between January and October.
Administratively, methamphetamine is included under narcotics for overall state drug crime statistics, Slemp said, and that can make it difficult to give a clear picture of meth’s impact on the regional substance abuse situation.
Belcher showed a detailed account of Drug Task Force seizures, where crystal methamphetamine and less-pure methamphetamine made up 143 of 200 non-pharmaceutical drug seizures for January-October 2021. The remainder included 33 instances of marijuana, seven of bath salts, six of heroin and nine others including Ecstasy, crack cocaine and other drugs.
Another 101 pharmaceutical drug seizures involved prescription opioids. Of those, 49 were buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid overdoses.
Van Zee said treating methamphetamine abuse means a separate set of challenges from opioid addiction treatment.
“We do have really good treatment options for opioid abuse with methadone and suboxone, and they’re much more effective than abstinence-based treatment,” said Van Zee. “We can treat people as outpatients and we have counseling options and group settings.”
Access to some opioid treatment options — especially methadone clinics and residential treatment facilities — is still limited in the region, Van Zee said. Methamphetamine added another layer to substance abuse treatment in Southwest Virginia.
“From all accounts everywhere, meth is more affordable and available,” said Van Zee. “It’s highly addictive and it causes brain damage with extended use. Meth causes such a higher level of dopamine release in the brain than do opioids, and that’s a key driver in its addiction potential. We don’t have good treatment options for meth abuse.”
Slemp and Belcher agreed, though, that meth use in Southwest Virginia has been on the rise since about 2018, while prescription opioid abuse has leveled or trended downward in the same period.
“We’re just as focused on the drug trade as ever,” said Slemp. “Federal, state and local law enforcement are trying very hard to deal with meth as well as opioids.”
Wise County’s drug court program, a needle-exchange program and the Wise Works offender work program have been successful options for opioid abusers seeking treatment and a drug-free environment, Slemp said, and those options are available for offenders dealing with meth addiction too.
“The substance abuse crisis has affected almost every single family in the region,” Slemp said. “Philosophically, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for treatment, but if someone wants help, we’re quick to offer an alternative.”
Van Zee said a shortage of treatment capacity — especially long-term residential programs — has been a long-term problem in Southwest Virginia, and the meth situation has only highlighted the need for treatment options and access.”
“I hate to see people go to jail for substance abuse if there are ways to help them,” Van Zee said.
Recommended Videos
source: https://www.timesnews.net/news/crime/meth-brings-sea-change-in-addiction-treatment-law-enforcement-in-sw-va/article_b7997a9c-5e8c-11ec-ae7f-dfee94975d02.html
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.