President Obama told a West Virginia crowd Wednesday that poverty and a lack of opportunity have contributed to the region’s drug epidemic, but critics say the president’s own environmental policies are crushing a once-vibrant coal industry and exacerbating the state’s plight.
In a town hall meeting here, the epicenter of the nation’s battle with heroin and prescription drug addiction, the president said low-income communities, or those with few economic opportunities, are more likely to see their residents fall into drug abuse.
“There are some communities we know that are more vulnerable, and the kids there are more vulnerable,” Mr. Obama said at the forum, which lasted just over 60 minutes. “Income and race make a difference here. The truth of the matter is that poor communities are more vulnerable … Those kids who don’t always look like us and don’t live in the same neighborhood as us, they’re just as precious and their parents are much less equipped than you or I would be in dealing with this stuff. And we’ve got to help them, too.”
West Virginia leads the nation in drug overdose deaths, with 33.5 fatalities per every 100,000 people — more than twice the national average. Mr. Obama is proposing steps to help communities cope, such as expanded training for doctors who prescribe painkillers and more money for treatment centers.
He said West Virginia’s high rate of drug overdose cases “partly has to do with the economics that have been taking place in some of these communities.”
But West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said before Mr. Obama’s visit that the prevalence of local drug abuse and the state’s 7.3 percent unemployment rate — the highest in the nation — are tied to punitive federal regulations on the coal-mining industry.
Mr. Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has, for example, begun to implement the nation’s first limits on carbon pollution from power plants. The agency has admitted that coal’s share of U.S. electricity generation will drop dramatically as a result of the plan, and numerous coal companies have declared bankruptcy or cut thousands of jobs in recent years, largely due to federal regulations.
“While President Obama finds it necessary to address our state about a war on drugs, it is inconceivable that he refuses to address in any meaningful way the plight of our miners and their families,” he said in a statement. “The president’s policies have consigned our state to poverty and have caused a loss of hope in our citizens.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia Republican, held a rally with other local officials and miners at the state Capitol to protest the president’s mining policies.
Beyond the environmental debate, there is broad, bipartisan agreement that the U.S. must begin to treat drug addiction differently and embrace treatment rather than incarceration. Lawmakers of both parties increasingly are supporting major changes to the criminal justice system, particularly how nonviolent drug offenders are punished.
Leading law enforcement officers also say the country can’t solve the growing drug problem simply by passing more laws or arresting more offenders.
“This is such an epidemic, and we cannot arrest our way out of this mess,” Charleston Police Chief Brent Webster said at Wednesday’s forum.
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• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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