In first gubernatorial debate, Cameron says he could sign a medical-cannabis bill; Keck favors exceptions to abortion law

Candidates who debated, clockwise from upper left:
Somerset Mayor Alan Keck, Attorney General Daniel
Cameron, state Auditor Mike Harmon, Commissioner
of Agriculture Ryan Quarles (Spectrum News image)

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

Attorney General Daniel Cameron said Tuesday night that he could sign a medical-marijuana bill as governor if it law-enforcement and medical experts "can get around a framework that is responsible."

Cameron was one of four Republican candidates for governor who appeared in the first debate of the race, held in Louisville by Spectrum News, a cable-television service.

Somerset Mayor Alan Keck separated himself from the other three by saying "there should be some exceptions" to the law that bans abortion except in cases of threat to the woman's life.

When Cameron ran for attorney general four years ago he was "absolutely" against medical marijuana, Nick Storm of Kentucky Fried Politics noted in his post-debate analysis for Spectrum. Then, he was the candidate of law enforcement, but now polls show overwhelming voter support for medical cannabis, Storm noted.

Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, who came out for medical cannabis a week earlier, said whatever law the state had needs "a very narrow framework." Keck said he "came out with this policy position months ago," and said it is "another example of Kentucky lagging behind. . . . We need to get the Senate on board and get it done.”

The Senate has not taken up medical-cannabis bills that the House, also controlled by Republicans, has passed in two legislative sessions. Late last year, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear used his pardon power to allow people with a doctor's certification that they have at least one of 21 specified medical conditions to possess up to eight ounces of cannabis bought legally in another state.  

State Auditor Mike Harmon, who answered the question last, said "I'm not there yet, but I am open to discussion."

The debate did not include former United Nations ambassador Kelly Craft, who declined the invitation from Spectrum and the Jefferson County Republican Party, which co-sponsored the event.

On abortion, Cameron, Harmon and Quarles said they support the current law, but Keck said, "I struggle, candidly, with this . . . I'm absolutely pro-life . . . I do believe there should be some exceptions … there has to be consideration for the woman in the event of violent trauma to them, especially in adolescence."

Asked if they would support greater public availability of Narcan, which counteracts drug overdoses, Harmon said he would be. Cameron said local officials should make the decision, and Keck said he is "a big believer in local control." Quarles said he would have to discuss the idea with legislators, law enforcement and people in public health.

UK HealthCare spending $5 million on security upgrades, setting new policies amid gun violence at health facilities in other states

Screenshot from UK Police website, adapted by Kentucky Health News

The University of Kentucky is bolstering security at health-care campuses "in response to increasing reports of violence taking place across the nation in health-care settings," a news release said Friday.

UK said its police began using handheld metal detectors on all patients and visitors entering emergency departments in April 2021, followed by installation of fixed metal detectors in July 2021. Other recent measures include having at least one police officer at each of the emergency departments around the clock.

The release said UK will spend $5 million on health-care safety, including:

• Addition of electronic access control to all perimeter doors to restrict public access as well as replacement and modernization of aged entryways.
• Utilization of emerging technology to enhance threat detection and expanding panic alarms and lockdown capabilities.
• Increased security camera coverage to improve situational awareness.
• Addition of UK Blue emergency towers to walkways where staff and patients travel frequently.
• Enhancement of exterior lighting to improve visibility around UK HealthCare facilities.

At a virtual forum for UK HealthCare employees, Executive Vice President for Health Affairs Mark Newman and UK Police Chief Joe Monroe discussed their efforts to improve the safety and security of employees, patients and visitors.

“We also are researching better ways to make UK HealthCare a weapons-free location through screening technology and looking at strategic efforts to increase dedicated police presence on the UK HealthCare campus,” Monroe said.

The moves were announced in the wake of the June 1 killings of four people at a Tulsa hospital by man who blamed his doctor for pain after back surgery and also killed himself, but the news release said UK Police have worked for a year with a security consultant on the first phase of a continuing security review "with an initial focus on enhancing perimeter security and fortifying the emergency departments at UK Chandler Hospital and UK Good Samaritan Hospital," the news release said.

"Hospital trauma departments are on the front lines whenever there's a mass shooting, but when those spaces are targeted, staff must mobilize to not only protect their patients but themselves," Axios Vitals reports. "And yet, efforts to fortify health facilities could also conflict with their traditional roles as community resources and safe spaces.

Axios Vitals notes that "From 2010 to 2020, shootings resulted in 39 deaths at health-care facilities accredited by the Joint Commission. From 2000 to 2011, researchers found there were 154 hospital-related shootings in the U.S. A survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians in 2018 concluded that nearly half of emergency- room doctors have been assaulted at work."

Pandemic has created divides, socioeconomic and political

A GrubHub delivery is made in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Erik S. Lesser, European Pressphoto Agency)

Former labor secretary Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, writes for Common Dreams that the pandemic has created four new socioeconomic classes. In The New Yorker, Robin Wright summarizes and elaborates on them:

• “Remotes” are professional, managerial, and technical workers still at their jobs, usually remotely and usually for the same pay.
• “Essentials” include health care, the food-supply chain, police and other first responders, and truck drivers, about 30 percent of workers, many of whom "are putting their lives at risk with limited physical or economic protection," Wright notes.
• “Unpaids” are the growing numbers of the unemployed, the furloughed and personal-services workers whose task can't be done remotely. "So far in this crisis, 43 percent of adults report they or someone in their household has lost jobs or pay, according to the Pew Research Center," Reich notes.
• “Forgottens” are migrant workers, the homeless, Native Americans, the disabled, the elderly, and the imprisoned. "Outbreaks in nursing homes, homeless shelters, and prisons have proved among the most merciless," Wright writes.

Reich concluded, "Not surprisingly, the Essentials, the Unpaid, and the Forgotten are disproportionately poor, black, and Latino. And they are disproportionately becoming infected. An Associated Press breakdown of available state and local data showed close to 33 percent of coronavirus deaths so far are African-American, despite representing only 14 percent of the total population in areas surveyed."

In Kentucky, African Americans have accounted for 18 percent of deaths from covid-19 though they are only 8.3 percent of the state's population, and Latinos have a higher rate of coronavirus cases than their population share.

Black, Latino and poor Americans "aren’t getting what they need to survive this crisis because they don’t have lobbyists and political action committees to do their bidding in Washington or state capitals," Reich argues. "The Remotes among us should be concerned, and not just because of the unfairness of the covid-19 class divide. If the Essentials aren’t sufficiently protected, the Unpaid are forced back to work earlier than is safe, and the Forgotten remain forgotten, no one can be secure. Covid-19 will continue to spread sickness and death for months, if not years to come."

Wright, after citing Reich's insights, writes of another split: "The most dangerous divide emerging from the pandemic is the oldest in American history—over the rights and duties of the states versus the power of the federal government. We fought a war over the issue a hundred and sixty years ago; it has flared again during the pandemic—and now threatens to tear the nation apart in new ways."

After citing President Trump's Twitter mischief aimed at governors in Michigan and other Democratic-led states, and his mixed signals about federal and state authority and responsibility, Wright warns:

"The impact could outlast the pandemic’s pathogens. The American social contract—based on the “inalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence—was already eroding; the interpretations were being redefined, a process begun by Reaganism in the 1980s as part of a sustained attack on the role and meaning of government, David Blight, a Yale historian, told me. From the Civil War to the 1970s, government expanded its reach to try to insure the same rights for African-Americans, women, Native Americans, the disabled, veterans, the elderly, and the ill. 

Government grew to fight wars and secure the homeland, improve the economy, advance education, and institute the first environmental protections. “But part of our political culture has never really supported this long and seismic change and done the best to roll it back,” Blight, who grew up in Flint, Michigan, told me. During the pandemic, those opposed to expansive government have decried shelter-in-place orders as excessive and questioned the recommendations of the government’s top health officials. . . .

The existential but conflicting issues spawned by the pandemic—the right to life and physical health versus the right to liberty and economic health—have provided the perfect vector for new fissures in America. The gun-toting protesters may be a minority, but polls show that the President’s positions on the role of the state during the pandemic have solid public backing. In the midst of Trump’s skirmish with (Michigan Gov. Gretchen] Whitmer, his job-approval rating soared by six points, to 49 percent, according to a new Gallup poll released on Thursday. It tied for Trump’s personal best in Gallup’s polling data; 47% disapprove. America is a country evenly and bitterly divided. But Americans should remember, Blight added, “There won’t be any blue or red rooms in heaven.”

The story of a rumor is a cautionary tale for small towns in the time of the coronavirus

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

When a rumor becomes a news story, it often has a larger story to tell.

Such is the case in Grayson County, population 27,000, where local officials held a news conference to quash rumors on social media that an identified man who had tested positive for the coronavirus was not isolating himself at home, when in fact he was as soon as he got the test result.

The posts on April 11 and 12 "wrongly claimed the 52-year-old man — whose diagnosis was announced publicly the afternoon of April 11 — had been spotted throughout the county after his diagnosis," reported Rebecca Morris, editor of The Record, one of the county's two weekly newspapers.

County Judge-Executive Kevin Henderson (The Record photo) 

County Judge-Executive Kevin Henderson said at an April 13 news conference, “The Leitchfield Police Department, the sheriff’s office and health department — just about every law enforcement agency in the county was busy squashing rumors that were brought to our attention.” he said.

Morris reported, "In all, officials received between 200 and 300 complaints over the weekend, he said. Henderson said county officials had been told the man had been spotted inside Walmart and other stores. Yet when law enforcement and County Attorney Jeremy Logsdon reviewed surveillance videos Saturday and Sunday of the complaints 'all were false,' Henderson said."

“We have followed up on every call,” he said. “We’ve had people who said they saw the person out but it’s turned out to be a false report.” He added that several of the informants were asked to sign affidavits, but refused because their complaints turned out to be based on third-person information.

Not only did the man self-isolating since he got his results, he willingly gave his car keys to county officials, Henderson said. “That patient has cooperated with us 100 percent,” he said. “Quite honestly I feel sorry for him, because (he’s) received a lot of threats — just a lot of bad things happening to them right now. . . . If you want to do something for him, pray for him. Reach out to him and make sure he’s doing well. Some of your statements are pretty harsh (and) we’re better than that.”

Logsdon, the county attorney, said reports of people violating self-isolation and other rules are helpful — if they’re not false. “The audacity of some individuals in this time of crisis is mind-blowing,” he said, noting that making false reports or starting false rumors is a crime — especially when it’s done with the intent to bully or harass, The Record reported.

The episode may have been repeated in small towns across the country, and may be even likelier to be repeated as social-distancing rules are relaxed and health departments track down people who may have been exposed, and if they have, order them to self-isolate for 14 days.

Health Department Director Joshua Embry
(Photo by Matt Lasley, Grayson County News-Gazette)

Joshua Embry, the director of the Grayson County Health Department, "said there is no way to make people stay in their homes unless and until they test positive for the virus. Those who undergo covid-19 testing are encouraged to stay home until they get the results, but cannot legally be made to stay there in the absence of an executive order by Gov. Andy Beshear," Morris wrote.

"If someone tests positive, they are given an isolation order, signed by Embry representing the state, saying he or she cannot leave home. If someone is accused of breaking a self-isolation order, the health department and law enforcement will investigate the truth of the allegations, Embry said. Officials simply can’t act on hearsay, he said."

Referring to social-media criticism of local officials, Henderson said, “Please don’t beat up on our health department, please don’t beat up on our hospital — these folks are doing all they can possibly do. It’s not their fault. They are following the exact same guidelines that are sent down to us from Frankfort from the governor, and we’re trying to do the best we can.”

Worst day yet: 114 cases, 7 deaths; Beshear says Kentuckians are buying in, but cops say crowds still a problem in Louisville

Gov. Andy Beshear often compares responses of Philadelphia and St. Louis to the 1918 flu epidemic. Tuesday he added Louisville's, which was not as strong as St. Louis's but was more resilient, limiting the resurgence often seen after the initial peak. He said that shows Kentucky must remain vigilant.

As news develops in Kentucky about the coronavirus and its covid-19 disease, this item will be updated. Official state guidance is at https://kycovid19.ky.gov.

• It is Kentucky's worst day of the covid-19 pandemic: 114 new cases and seven deaths, word of the seventh arriving in the midst of Gov. Andy Beshear's daily press conference.
• "We knew this was coming, and we know there are gonna be more days where we have more than 114 new cases, and there are probably gonna be days when we have more than six new deaths," Beshear said. The latest daily projection by the University of Washington is that deaths in Kentucky will peak in mid-May, with 23 deaths a day for several days and a total of 1,161 deaths by the time they taper out on Aug. 4.
• The seventh death was an 80-year-old in Campbell County, gender unidentified. Beshear said the others were an 88-year-old woman in Fayette County, a 74-year-old man in Bullitt County, and four in Jefferson: women aged 87 and 81, and men 74 and 66. “To my knowledge all these individuals had other factors” than covid-19, Beshear said. “This is the group that it impacts the most.”
• “Let’s commit we do the things that it takes to makes sure we don’t have a lot of days like this,” Beshear said. “Our numbers would be significantly worse if it wasn’t for what we are doing. . . . “If you’re not going to the grocery store or going to a job, don’t travel anywhere.”
• Health Commissioner Steven Stack said at the press conference, “If you do the things we have already asked you to do, we’re gonna be OK. . . . If you don’t do these things, there’s a lot of folks who are gonna get hurt.”
• Beshear said in a five-minute interview on CNN that limited data indicate his steps to create social distancing have helped "flatten the curve" of the contagion, reducing the threat to Kentuckians and their health-care system. Shown a graph comparing reported cases in Kentucky and Tennessee, he said, "I believe that how aggressive we've been is working."
• Beshear said "The people of Kentucky have bought in to what we're asking," but Louisville officials "continued to address community concerns about reports of large gatherings," the Courier Journal reports. Police Chief Steve Conrad said in a Facebook Live session that his officers spend a "great deal of time responding to situations where people are gathering" but "We cannot arrest someone for standing too close to another person — nor do we want to do that. . . . We're asking for cooperation and in some cases begging for cooperation. But at this point, we do not have the authority to make an arrest in regards to social distancing."
• Beshear said at his press conference, “Every crowd and gathering is an opportunity for the coronavirus to spread … It's spreading in just about every crowd and very gathering. . . . If there's a crowd at any store, you don't go in.”
• CNN interviewer John King asked Beshear to comment on President Trump's comment Monday that he hasn't heard of any problems with coronavirus testing in weeks. The overnor replied, "In Kentucky and everywhere across the country there are critical shortages of PPE and of testing kits. . . . I don't want to place blame out there; we're all fighting for these resources . . . but we've also been open and transparent about the fact that we don't have enough."

Methamphetamine returns to Appalachian Kentucky, in a more deadly form, and it's causing fear and division in communities

Dakota Scott, with her two-week-old daughter, fights meth addiction at Karen’s Place Maternity Center in Ashland, a facility for women in addiction recovery (Photo by Hilary Swift for The New York Times)

Timothy Williams of The New York Times reports from Louisa: "Home deliveries from the local food bank now require a police escort. A shop owner has started to carry her gun to work. And the local constable, who rarely had to pull his weapon in the past, has drawn it a dozen times over the past year. All because people hooked on methamphetamine have threatened them. . . . A very public push to end opioid abuse has unwittingly ushered in the return of crystal meth."

Officials have warned for a year or more that meth was making a comeback even as the opioid epidemic continued in Appalachia. It returned in "a powerful new form," Williams notes, and that "has brought a sharply different set of problems . . . If pain pills left residents struggling to help many family members deal with the risk of overdose, methamphetamine has bred fear and division."

Referring to homeless meth users, Louisa Mayor Harold Slone told the Times, “Half the people want to take them to the river and tie something around their neck. We hadn’t seen that level of anger before.” State police told Williams that in some places, about three-fourths of arrests are related to meth crimes — "mostly shoplifting, burglary or assault, but occasionally attempted murder."

Much as a crackdown early in the last decade on prescription opioids led to a surge in heroin, the latest crackdown and increased awareness of the epidemic has "unwittingly accelerated the switch to methamphetamine," Williams writes.

"Opioid users, increasingly fearful about overdosing on heroin and fentanyl, have been desperate for a substitute. A powerful Mexican organized crime syndicate, the Sinaloa drug cartel, has sought to fill the vacuum by targeting Appalachia, federal drug officials say. . . . The new Mexican variant is often mixed with cocaine, and increasingly, with fentanyl. Law-enforcement officials said cartels mix in those ingredients because fentanyl is inexpensive to produce, enhances the effects of meth and appears to cause faster addiction. Meth users around Louisa sometimes add their own dangerous ingredients, including wasp repellent, which users say produces a more intense high."

U.S. House passes Senate bill to maintain anti-fentanyl laws

The U.S. House passed a Senate bill Wednesday to keep deadly fentanyl and similar opioids listed as some of the most dangerous drugs, and President Trump is expected to sign it Friday, the day before the listings would expire.

The legislation would keep fentanyl compounds as Schedule I substances under the law governing the Drug Enforcement Administration, "giving law enforcement the tools they need to bring drug dealers to justice," said a press release from Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset.

"Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin, continues to be the most lethal drug for Kentucky causing nearly 800 overdose deaths in 2018 alone," said a press release from U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader. The Senate passed the bill Jan. 16.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the U.S. had more than 28,000 deaths involving synthetic opioids (other than methadone, which is used to treat addiction) in 2017, more deaths than from any other type of opioid.

Albany pharmacist who led U.S. in dispensing opioids pleads guilty to federal charges, pays $200K and faces 15-month term

Shearer Drug in July 2019 (Washington Post photo / Michael Williamson)

Albany pharmacist Kent Shearer, whose drug store dispensed more opioids than any other in the United States from 2006 through 2012, has pleaded guilty to three counts of illegal distribution of controlled substances, the U.S. Justice Department announced Jan. 28.

The U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky filed the charges in a criminal information on Jan. 10, but Shearer had been under investigation for a long time, after Clinton County Coroner Steve Talbott called police because of the number of drug overdoses in the county. Michael Cummings, a physician who had his office in the same building as Shearer is serving 30 months in prison on 13 counts of illegal prescribing.

Two charges said that between August 2011 and June 2014, and in 2015, the store dispensed hydrocodone "for patient J.Y., even though Shearer knew that the prescriptions were not written for a legitimate medical purpose. Shearer knew J.Y. was doctor shopping to obtain prescriptions for the same medications from multiple doctors, and because the . . . cough medicine . . . Dr. Michael Cummings prescribed to J.Y. had been prescribed for far longer than recommended in prescription guidelines." One of the charges said "Shearer filled prescriptions early on multiple occasions."

Clinton County (Wikipedia map)

The other charge said that between August 2011 and April 2015, the store dispensed alprazolam, commonly known as Xanax, for the same patient though he "knew that the prescriptions were not written for a legitimate medical purpose. Shearer knew J.Y. was doctor shopping to obtain prescriptions for the same medications from multiple doctors, and because Shearer filled prescriptions early on multiple occasions."

Prosecutors said they would seek a sentence of 15 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and Shearer "has agreed to forfeit a $200,000 monetary judgment to the United States" on or before the sentencing date of May 14, 2020. He has sold his business to another local pharmacy, the Clinton County News reports.

Editorial in Frankfort's newspaper says drug addiction should be treated as a health issue, not a crime

The State Journal

With rising inmate populations and crumbling prison infrastructure depleting the state of much-needed funding, it is time to stop treating drug addiction as a crime and start regarding it as the public health issue that it is.

We agree with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce that reclassifying drug possession charges to misdemeanors and investing in treatment over incarceration will serve a dual purpose — save the state money on prison costs, which grew 15.9 percent between 2016 and 2020, and help to break the cycle of drug addiction through education and treatment.

The cost to incarcerate a state inmate in Kentucky is $18,406 per year. The approximately 4,500 inmates in prison for drug offenses in 2016 cost taxpayers more than $82 million per year.

According to data from the Criminal Justice Policy Assessment Council, a working group established by former Gov. Matt Bevin charged with developing “fiscally-sound, data-driven criminal justice policies,” the number of offenders imprisoned for drug trafficking between 2012 and 2016 jumped 25.6% (1,525 in 2012 to 1,916 in 2016). However, there was a 101.5% increase in the number of offenders (911 in 2012 to 1,836 in 2016) jailed on drug possession charges.

In fact, it was a year ago this week that a Franklin County Regional Jail inmate was discovered dead in his cell after what a lawsuit alleges were days without treatment for withdrawal symptoms related to drug use.

Dylan Stratton, 21, was booked into the jail Jan. 17, 2019, on a drug charge and was placed in the detox holding cell for observation. According to the lawsuit, he refused meals and began vomiting. A day later he had a seizure, reportedly from benzodiazepine withdrawal, and died.

This case is just one of many that illustrate how Kentucky’s jails are ill-equipped to handle drug addicts. Instead of spending money to punish drug users, the state should increase funding for substance abuse treatment.

Law enforcers report drug arrests on social media with sassy hashtags; experts say that reinforces stigma, inhibits treatment

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Some Kentucky law-enforcement agencies are getting sassy in their social-media posts about the disease of addiction, a practice they say attracts a larger audience for their work against drugs and other banes of their communities.

But health advocates say the practice is dehumanizing, discourages people with substance-use disorders from seeking help, and perpetuates public stigma, Bobbie Curd reports for the Danville Advocate-Messenger in an article titled: Hashtag stigma: Addiction experts warn against trend of using humor in reporting drug arrests.

Curd details several cases. One involved an intoxicated man who reported a stolen laptop computer, and told the responding officer that he wanted to go to jail, eventually saying he wanted to be with his girlfriend, who was serving a five-month term. Then he pulled out a spoon, syringe and a large amount of suspected methamphetamine, and was arrested.

Screenshot of Facebook post; for a larger version, click on it.

The Garrard County Police Department posted a release on its Facebook page about the incident Jan. 6 with the headline "True Love" and a subhead "BUT WAIT, IT GETS BETTER," above the drug revelation.

"Hashtags on the post included “#LoveWins, #IsThisMTVCribs, #LemmeShowYouAround, #LoveANDmethAreInTheAir, #WhereCupidAt,” and “#CheckOutMyStash,” among others," Curd writes. After her story appeared, the hashtags were removed.

Earlier, Garrard County Judge-Executive John Wilson told Curd that a "younger moderator" created the tags, which mimicked what other agencies had done. He said he was responsible, and wants to humanize police. “You see a lot of animosity towards law enforcement, so anything we can do to make the department a little more relatable” helps, he said, adding that he did not intend to make light of the case.

Wilson said his headline and subhead did not editorialize, and “bringing publicity to what the officers are doing is helpful. It’s not intended to poke fun.”

Curd reported, "Out of the 572 comments on the post, almost all are from people making jokes. The post has been shared 1,300 times. Only a handful of comments question the wording of the post."

She added that other police agencies in the area have used similar catchy hashtags, and some officers she interviewed told her that they may have copied the practice from the Louisville Metro Police Department.

Curd reports that the Louisville police posted: “On Christmas Eve Eve, our Major Case Unit 1 in our Criminal Interdiction Division was creepin’ and peepin’ on a known drug trafficker. What do alleged drug dealers do on X-mas Eve Eve? Well, they go bowling, of course."

Curd notes that the post detailed an incident involving a "large currency transaction" that speculates that it may have been over a person who "lost a bet not picking up a 7/10 split." She gave the hashtags: #BowlingPunTime, #SomeAlleysAreDangerousYouCouldEndUpInTheGutter,” #YouKnowTheTagsAreComingInHot,  #BowlingWitMyHomies” and #WhenWeSeizedTheMoneyYouCouldHearAPinDrop.

Sgt. Lamont Washington, the department's chief spokesman, told Curd that the department's more comedic approach helped increased its Facebook followers from 5,000 in 2016 to 130,000 today, a "valuable law enforcement asset" that has spurred apprehension of suspects.

“And the hashtags on drug seizes, we have people who look at our page now that don’t know anything about policing, and we are able to educate them” with such information as quotations of state law.

But Washington also told Curd that even with “all the fun,” the department never posts mugshots, unless they have an active warrant for someone and want the public’s help; tries not to lose sight that the person involved is a family member; and strives not poke fun at addiction or use slurs like "crackhead" or "doper."

Newspapers follow suit

After the Garrard County post went up on a Monday, the Garrard Central Record, the weekly newspaper in Lancaster, printed a story that Thursday with the headline, "Might as Well Face It, He's Addicted to Love." Editor-Publisher Ted Cox declined to comment, Curd reports.

She asked Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky about it and he said, “This is one reason I did a Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery workshop in November for journalists." One session explained why it is important to not use stigmatizing language when reporting on addiction.

Cross, who is also the editor and publisher of Kentucky Health News, said he's seen similar examples, and thinks reporters are largely uncomfortable with doing enterprise reporting on the subject and “often default to the law-enforcement narrative. When the law enforcement narrative turns into mocking people with the disease, that is an inappropriate narrative to adopt.”

In adjoining Mercer County in July, the sheriff's office made an impressive meth bust, Curd reports, posing hashtags included #HugeMethsquitos, #BreakingBad, #HideYaDope, #YouMadBro, #gameon, #YouOweMoneyNowBruh, and #NightShiftLitTho, among others.

But this trend isn't being followed in Danville, where Asst. Police Chief Glenn Doan told Curd that social-media posts should only be used to inform the community of newsworthy events. “They should contain a basic overview of the incident and all related information that should be deemed pertinent,” he said. “In most cases, they should not contain personal opinion or satire.”

Boyle County Sheriff Derek Robbins agreed. “I don’t think it’s our place to do that,” he said, telling Curd that such posts are not professional and can cast a negative light on the agency. “You have to maintain a sense of professionalism,” he said. “You don’t dehumanize them.”

Jessica Buck, a local public defender who stressed that her comments represented her own views and not her department's, told Curd that the practice "creates a divide between the community that we're serving. It takes someone at their very worst, and not only does it share something that’s at the lowest time in their life, it mocks them."

Robert Fox, who is in recovery from his addiction and is the director of community outreach at the Shepherd's House, an outpatient treatment center in Danville, told Curd that such posts create a feeling of "It's us against the world" and "make people like me seem less-than, to keep us in our place. … We go out every day and work with employers to get them to realize this is a disease, and that these are normal people."

Tanith Wilson, vice president of Shepherd's House and sober 13 years, called the trend "sad and heartbreaking." She said it can create a pack mentality online, with “heinous comments like ‘lock them up forever,’ or ‘just let them die.’ I’m very comfortable sharing my past, especially due to what I’m doing now, but it still makes me feel less than human when I read those comments. It’s a terrible, awful feeling.”

Kathy Miles, coordinator for the Boyle County Agency for Substance Abuse Police, told Curd that people who struggle with addiction shouldn’t have their “whole persona encapsulated in their addiction like this, or made light of,” partly because it discourages them from getting treatment. “Law enforcement and the media have incredible power to help people get treatment,” she said.

Don Helme, who is running a health-communication campaign in an $87 million grant-funded project at UK to reduce drug overdoses in Boyle and 15 other counties, told Curd, “It has a chilling effect on people seeking help. They become ashamed, fearful and angry. This sort of stigma in these hashtags — it’s heartbreaking.”

Louisville newspaper tracks huge, powerful and violent drug cartel's invasion of small towns in Kentucky and other states

Courier Journal illustration shows farm worker who oversaw flow of $30 million in drugs into Kentucky.

The tentacles of a huge, powerful and violent drug cartel reach from Mexico into unlikely places in Kentucky and other states, Beth Warren reports for the Louisville Courier Journal.

The "New Generation Jalisco Cartel," is known by its Spanish name, Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación and its acronym. "CJNG’s increased distribution of fentanyl across the country has helped the synthetic opioid unseat heroin as the nation’s No. 1 killer," Warren writes. "The billion-dollar criminal organization has a large and disciplined army, control of extensive drug routes throughout the U.S., sophisticated money-laundering techniques and an elaborate digital terror campaign, federal drug agents say."

CJNG’s network reaches into "the mountains of Virginia, small farming towns in Iowa and Nebraska, and across the Bluegrass State" of Kentucky, Warren reports. "A cartel member even worked at Kentucky's famed Calumet Farm, home to eight Kentucky Derby and three Triple Crown winners. . . . CJNG members have followed relatives or friends who left Mexico for the U.S. to find jobs. The cartel exploits its connections with otherwise hard-working immigrants, said Dan Dodds, who leads DEA operations in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Ciro Macias Martinez, now serving a 31-year prison term, "led a double life, working as a horse groomer by day and overseeing the flow of $30 million worth of drugs into Kentucky by night before being imprisoned in 2018 for meth trafficking and money laundering, federal records show," Warren writes. "No sooner had authorities busted Kentucky's CJNG ring than the cartel replaced Macias, sending in another team. It hauled in more than 3 kilos of fentanyl, the synthetic opioid so potent that an amount as small as Abraham Lincoln's cheek on a penny can be fatal."

In Paducah, sheriff's investigators said the cartel warned a business owner who fell behind on a drug debt, "If we don’t get our money, we’re gonna kill you and your family." Russell Coleman, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, said, “We’re fighting a war for our families, and (the cartels) are winning.”

CJ Editor Rick Green explained to readers that the paper made the effort because "It's a local story."

Rural coroner made the tough calls on his town's opioid epidemic

Coroner Steve Talbott, in his funeral home
(Photo by Michael S. Williamson, The Washington Post)

How many rural coroners, witnessing death after death from opioid overdoses, would call police in an effort to see how their county was being inundated by the misused prescription drugs? We don't know the answer to that question, but we do know what funeral director Steve Talbott, the elected coroner of Clinton County for the last 25 years, did. He made the calls, and one result was the conviction of a local physician who shared a building with the pharmacy that dispensed more opioids per person per county in 2006-12 than any in the U.S.

Jenn Abelson, Andrew Ba Tran, Beth Reinhard and Aaron C. Davis of The Washington Post reported the story last week, following the Post's publication of other stories drawing on the Drug Enforcement Administration database for those years. Their story is a look at the opioid epidemic from the bottom up, in Albany, Paintsville and Booneville; Kanab, Utah; and Carthage, Tenn., where pharmacies were funnels for large volumes of painkillers.

When Talbott responded as coroner to an overdose death, the Post reports, "Friends and relatives of the dead rarely had answers to Talbott’s questions: What kind of pills did they take and where did they come from? A toxicology report often answered the first question. It was the second one that typically eluded Talbott. As overdose deaths soared, Talbott repeatedly called the state police, hoping they could identify the source of opioids poisoning his community."

Clinton County (Wikipedia map)

Since 2006, 41 people have died of prescription opioid overdoses in the county of 10,000. Talbott told the Post that law enforcement took far too long to pay attention. "The federal investigation began in 2015 after Talbott noticed multiple overdose deaths involving patients of a local physician, Michael L. Cummings, and the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure expert found Cummings’s treatment of several patients fell below minimum standards of care, court records show," the Post reports. "In 2017, Cummings was charged in federal court with the illegal distribution of controlled substances, which resulted in the deaths of three patients." He pleaded guilty in March to 13 counts of illegally prescribing controlled substances, and was sentenced July 24 to 30 months in prison and fined $400,000. Cummings had his medical practice in the same building as Shearer Drug, operated by Kent Shearer, who declined to comment.

The Post reports, "The 6.8 million opioid pills bought by Shearer Drug from 2006 through 2012 accounted for 66 percent of the total ordered by the county’s five pharmacies, according to The Post’s analysis." When Talbott heard those figures from the Post, he told the newspaper: “It’s a lot of pain medication for this little town.”

"Talbott, who said he grew up with Shearer and attended the same school, hasn’t talked to the pharmacist in a few months," the Post reports. "Talbott said the overdose deaths have waned since Cummings was indicted in 2017, but the epidemic is far from over." He told the paper, “There were just too many people dying from these drugs in such a small place. I hate these drugs. They are awful.”

Albany doctor pleads guilty to illegal prescription of painkillers; federal prosecutors said some resulted in deaths

A doctor in Appalachian Southern Kentucky pleaded guilty March 18 to 13 counts of prescribing controlled substances without any legitimate medical purpose and outside the course of professional medical practice, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky announced March 22.

Dr. Michael L. Cummings, 63, a family practitioner in Albany, faces a maximum prison term of 145 years, a combined maximum fine of $7.25 million, and three years of supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for June 19 before District Court Chief Judge Greg Stivers. 

Cummings' plea agreement with the Justice Department says that in 2012-14, he prescribed the painkillers Oxycodone, OxyContin, Endocet and hydrocodone, the anti-anxiety medicines Valium and alprazolam, the appetite suppressant phentermine, and the sleep aid zolpidem tartrate, all "without any legitimate medical purpose and outside the course of professional medical practice."

Two years ago, Cummings was charged with 18 counts of illegal prescriptions "resulting in the deaths of three patients" in 2014, the U.S. attorney's office said at the time. The news releases used initials to identify the decedents; one of those named in the 2014 release was not named in the latest one. "Cummings was initially charged with prescribing drugs that resulted" in those deaths, "but federal prosecutors dropped those three counts of the indictment," Bill Estep reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"Federal prosecutors said in a motion that Cummings was one of the most prolific prescribers in the state between 2012 and 2014, even though Clinton County has only about 10,000 residents," Estep reports. That "caught the attention of federal authorities, who investigated along with Kentucky State Police. Police watched Cummings’ office in Albany and saw cars from outside the county and state, and also got records showing his patients were filling prescriptions outside the county." That indicated “a medical practice that attracted and/or catered to people who were either abusing or diverting prescription pain medications,” the plea agreement said.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article228290179.html#storylink=cpy

Drug-overdose stats would be a lot worse without naloxone

Photo illustration from The Anderson News

The statistics on drug-overdose deaths in Kentucky are bad, but they could be a lot worse if first responders didn't save so many drug users with naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of opioids, they told Editor-Publisher Ben Carlson of The Anderson News.

Carlson reports, "Bart Powell, the county’s director of public safety, said were it not for Narcan, a drug used to revive those who have overdosed, the number of deaths here would have been considerably higher." Narcan is the brand name of the device usually used to deliver naloxone.

“There were two just yesterday,” Powell told Carlson July 30. “There are 10 or more we are bringing back each month. There’s no scientific way to tell, but from the street perspective, there would have been a lot more deaths.”

Powell said ambulances have long carried naloxone, "but the recent decision to provide the life-saving drug to police and firefighters has been key to preventing deaths, particularly in rural communities such as Anderson," Carlson reports.

“The police often get there first because they’re already out,” Powell  said. “Their response times, especially in the city, are usually quicker. They’ve saved a lot of lives.”

Carlson's story, across the top of his front page, was mainly about Anderson County ranking 11th out of 120 counties in drug overdoses in 2017, according to a report from the state Office of Drug Control Policy.

Two Northern Kentucky police departments have hired social workers, the first in the state to do so; helps in drug fight

The Alexandria Police Department in Northern Kentucky was the first police department in the state to hire a full-time police social worker. It's been so successful they are hiring another one and the nearby Erlanger Police Department has hired one too.

Kelly Pompilio, Alexandria Police Department's first police
social worker, rides along with a police officer. (Photo by Jim
Robertson, Kentucky Law Enforcement Magazine)

"For the first time in my career I'm seeing this agency help people work through problems that we have never been able to help with," Police Chief Mike Ward said on the Kentucky Educational Television program "Disrupting the Opioid Epidemic."

The Kentucky Enquirer reported that Lexington, Louisville and Bowling Green have previously hired social workers that focus on victims' advocacy, but Alexandria's hire "will focus, as programs in Illinois and Wisconsin do, on every kind of case from helping children impacted by domestic violence to criminal cases."

"People in crisis cannot self-advocate . . . and that's where the police social worker comes in and helps guide people to the right services," Ward said on KET. He added that 67 percent of their calls for service are non-criminal in nature and said, "When people don't know what to do, they call 911."

Van Ingram, who served with the Maysville Police Department for more than 23 years, six as chief, and is now the executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, called Ward's idea to hire a police social worker "genius."

"A lot of police are often reluctant to step into that social workers role because frankly, that's not what we are trained to do," Ingram said. "But to have one there at the police department to make those referrals, that can help with those situations is just genius in my mind."

Abbie Darst of Kentucky Law Enforcement Magazine reported last year how Ward learned about the police social work position and how it's working out.

Pompilio leaves these cards with heroin
users or their family members in the hopes
they will seek treatment. (WCPO image)

One of the programs spearheaded by Kelly Pompilio, the agencies' police social worker, is the Angel Program, which was created by the Alexandria police and has been replicated across the state. This program, with the help of volunteers, not only helps people with substance use disorders get into treatment, but also helps them move through recovery to find jobs or educational opportunities. The program has reached out to more than 90 individuals, with over 40 entering treatment.

Abby Anstead and Kristyn Hartman of Cincinnati's WCPO-TV reported in detail about Pompilio and the Angel Program.

“The biggest thing I do is helping families in crisis getting linked to what they need and being able to make those phone calls for them,” Pompilio told them. “With our drug treatment programs, each addict, I probably call 10 facilities each time and put them on waiting lists, find out what insurance they accept, what the waiting list is, what their program looks like, their availability -- and for a family member to have to do that when they’ve already been emotionally drained, that’s very difficult.”

Ward's advice to other police departments: "Hire a darn social worker and let them do the job, they are phenomenal."

The Erlanger Police Department has done just that, Breanna Molloy reports for WCPO. Inspired by Alexandria, the Erlanger department hired its own social worker, Becky Strouse, who told Molloy in April that in her two months on the job, she had already followed up on dozens of calls related to mental illness, drug abuse and domestic violence.

"For example, there was a domestic violence situation where we had been called multiple times in a three-day time frame. And then we were able to get the mom and the children out of the home and get them placed into a safe place," Strouse said.

Owenton convenience store pulls synthetic urine used to pass drug tests after issue is raised by police chief and local paper

Following inquiries by the local newspaper and police chief, an Owenton convenience store has stopped selling "controversial items such as U-Pass, a brand of synthetic urine that can allegedly be used to pass a drug test," reports Molly Haines of the Owenton News-Herald.

The Owenton Marathon Station, also known as Cowboys, "began selling items like U-Pass and synthetic cannabinoids, an alternative to marijuana, earlier this year," Haines reports. "When local residents began noticing the items, they took to Facebook to express their concerns, with one post garnering nearly 170 comments and more than 100 shares on the social media website."

Police Chief Terry Gentry raised the issue with the City Council on April 17, and three days later the News-Herald interviewed store owner Dash Patel, who "said he was unaware of any discussion of the products on social media," Haines reports. "Additionally, Patel said concerned customers or Gentry had not approached him."

But the next day, "Gentry visited the store and Patel assured him the items would be removed from the business," Haines reports.

Gentry told Haines the items are “perfectly legal,” but she notes that "the health effects of using synthetic cannabinoids can be unpredictable and harmful — even life-threatening — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

Meanwhile, the Owen County Drug Prevention Coalition wrote store manager Kishan Patel, asking her to no longer sell U-Pass because it encourages drug use.

Patel told the coalition in an email May 1, “At the time when we brought these products in our inventory (by customer demand), we were not aware of how these products would affect the community. One of our goals has always been helping our community grow.”