The Attorney General was correct when he answered to the scope of the perscription drug abuse in Kentucky.

So, Dr. Rand Paul isn't interested in 'the truth.'  Just like his buddies at Murdoch's NewsCorp he is only interested in bashing the Democrats while insulting the electorate with rhetoric to mislead them.

Lynn and Sam Kissick discuss the tragic death of their daughter as a result of a prescription drug overdose.

By Mark Potter


Correspondent
NBC News NBC News


updated 7/6/2009 8:17:58 AM ET

MOREHEAD, Ky. — Late in the morning last New Year's Day, (click title to entry - thank you) Sam and Lynn Kissick received a devastating phone call that would tear their lives apart. The caller informed them their 22-year-old daughter, Savannah, was being rushed by ambulance to the St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, Ky. She had long battled drug addiction, but it looked like this time, Savannah had overdosed on a combination of painkillers and sedatives while celebrating New Year's Eve.
After racing to the emergency room to be by Savannah's side, her parents were met by a physician with grim news. "I'm sorry, Mr. And Mrs. Kissick, but she didn't make it," he said.
Savannah had just become the latest fatality linked to prescription drug abuse, a fast-growing problem that killed more than 8,500 Americans in 2005, according to the latest available statistics from the Office of National Drug Control Policy....

...A regional ‘epidemic’



While the problem exists in every state in the country, Kentucky led the nation in the use of prescription drugs for non-medical purposes during the last year, according to the state's Office of Drug Control Policy. Officials said prescription drug abuse is particularly acute in the cities and rural areas of Eastern Kentucky.


Last year alone, at least 485 people died in Kentucky from prescription drug overdoses, according to the state's Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Medical Examiners' records indicate the drugs most commonly found in those death cases were methadone, the painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone, alprazolam (Xanax), morphine, diazepam (Valium) and fentanyl.
"It's an epidemic and I'm afraid we're losing a whole generation," said Beth Lewis Maze, the Chief Circuit Judge for the 21st Judicial Circuit in Kentucky. "These pain medications are so highly addictive that these young people are digging themselves a very deep hole."
In the region's newly formed drug court, Maze sees the ravages of prescription drug abuse at all levels of society. "I see good kids from good families, doctors, lawyers, teachers," she said....