There was an article in the August 29 issue of the State Journal highlighting the fact that West Virginia is among the most medicated of states – meaning that the prescription drugs per capita of its’ citizens is off the charts.

I posted about a related issue back on July 30, titled West Virginia Doctors in Bed with Pharmaceutical Firms, commenting on the fact that a number of West Virginia doctors are getting paid under the table by drug companies to prescribe patients certain expensive drugs, and that to top it off, those doctors names are being secretly withheld from public disclosure.

According to the State Journal article, the number 1 prescription filled in West Virginia is Hydrocodone, which is an addictive opiate. In case you didn’t know, West Virginia has a little problem with pill junkies and the doctors who make a nice living supplying them. Most of these prescriptions are most likely funded by us, the taxpayers, while we are also forced to bear the burden of these pill-junkies committing crimes so they can buy black-market pills once their prescription runs out.

And then there is the issue of the over-medication of children, especially in West Virginia. Any lawyer who has dealt with juveniles in abuse and neglect cases is well aware of the fact that any time a child shows any type of negative behavior, they are inundated with prescription drugs – not just by parents and doctors, but by the State. And the drugs solve the problem exactly 0% of the time.

How do we solve this problem? We let the sunshine in. We expose the doctors who are in bed with the pharmaceutical firms, and the bad doctors who abuse their hippocratic oath. We rein in pharmaceutical advertising. And for God’s sake, we stop using taxpayer money to buy drugs for people.

– John H. Bryan, West Virginia Attorney.