Headline: 20.8 Million Pain Pills Flood Tiny Town in WV
Let’s talk about Williamson, West Virginia, the little town in Mingo County that has been featured in the news for the past several years as a sort of starting point for the opioid epidemic.
According to sources, 20 million (give or take about 1 million) pain pills were sent to Williamson, WV, pop. 2900-3200 (depending on your source) over a 10 year period, and that those numbers are insanely high for such a little town. Sources imply the doctors there must be corrupt pill-pushers, with their pockets deep in Big Pharma, and/or Big Pharma picked on this unsuspecting underdog town for the purposes of corporate greed.
This story is also meant to imply doctors cannot be trusted to prescribe pain pills appropriately, and therefore need major government oversight. Doctors are meant to be seen as directly responsible (along with Big Pharma) for “passing out pain pills like candy” and getting the population hooked on opioids.
The headline’s numbers look insane (which is the point), but NOT ONE article takes demographics into account. That little town’s elderly population consists of 22% elderly (65+), and 56% adults 18-64. Those working adults overwhelmingly hold/held manual labor jobs, which tend to lead to more serious and long-term, even lifelong injuries.
Break It Down:
- 20 million pills divided by 10 years = 2 million pills per year.
- To keep things simple, assume ONLY the elderly 65+ gets pain pills. That’s 22% (elderly pop.) x 3,000 (total pop. of town) = 660 elderly people.
- 2 million pills per year divided by 660 (est. elderly pop.) = 3030 pills/year/elderly person.
- 3030 pills per year divided by 365 days per year = roughly 8 pills/day.
- 1 pill lasts 4-6 hours, so 24 hours/4 hours coverage = 6 pills per day*.
- Before this opioid crisis started, 4-6 pills/day wasn’t an unusual amount, and patients could even sometimes take (gasp) 2 pills at a time, depending on the dosage and their situation.
And those figures are crunched just based on the elderly population alone. If you figure in other older adults like those in the 50-64 age range, that number of pills per day goes down even further.
There is a heroin epidemic, and there is an economic crisis, but as far as Williamson, WV and little towns like it being “flooded” with unnecessary pain pills, I call FAKE NEWS!
The Midwest Courier 
I do like seeing people willing to correct news when it is propaganda. It’s the only reliable defense to being programmed by the ones in ownership of the media output, and that’s more important every year with the way people train their brain to respond best (or only) to digital input.
Our brains are plastic things in that they can be made to accept certain kinds of information over time, regardless of that information being true or trustworthy. If the “news” is a lie and we have no training to recognize this, or any skills to research the question ourselves–and nowadays students are not taught how research actually is done–we need voices like yours to help point out when things are amiss. Thanks.
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Thank you! I only wish my voice were a little stronger. I feel I’m shouting until I’m hoarse with little impact. But I certainly do appreciate your continued readership and commenting. 🙂
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