Fears grow as heroin seeps into Appalachia

MANCHESTER, Ky. - Growing up in the hardscrabble hills of Appalachia, Bobby Vaughn began popping painkillers at 15-years-old, sneaking them from his injured coal miner dad. That was the start of a three-decade-long addiction to any drug available: OxyContin, cocaine, meth – and beginning a year ago, heroin.

“A friend had some. It was stronger, more intense than anything I ever did,” said Vaughn, a 47-year-old Harlan County resident now staying at Chad’s Hope recovery center. “It scared me.”

Fears are rising across rural Eastern Kentucky as heroin seeps into a region already marred by social forces that threaten to give it a strong foothold: poverty, unemployment, rampant addiction and hopelessness. Until recently in Kentucky, heroin has largely been an urban scourge. Now, it's a mountain malady too.

It’s showing up as the drug of choice among a rapidly-growing number of addicts in treatment, historically a reliable indicator of emerging drug trends. At one women’s treatment center in Prestonsburg, for example, 61 percent of clients are hooked on heroin.

Read more: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2016/08/13/fears-grow-heroin-seeps-into-appalachia/87950936/