Prescription drug abuse ravages a state's youth
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 | Prescription drugs 'killing our young' July 5: In their own words, parents, community leaders and advocates discuss the "epidemic" of prescription drug abuse. Nightly News |
Florida connection
During a recent classroom session at his clinic, Ross asked the residents where they bought their prescription drugs. Every person in the room had either traveled to Florida to obtain the medications, or had purchased drugs from someone else who had bought prescription painkillers there.
Florida has become notorious as a destination for addicts and drug dealers from around the southeastern United States. They are drawn to the many pain clinics in Florida, some of which dispense hundreds of painkillers at a time after only a cursory medical exam.
"You can go down there and within 24 hours have everything you need," said Fultz, who added that the medical exam she was given at a Florida pain clinic, where she pretended to suffer from pain, was not at all professional.
"I mean, they look at your MRI, ask you how you are feeling — ‘I'm feeling pretty bad’ — and you leave there with pills."
Sam Kissick, Savannah’s father, believes the drugs that killed his daughter came from Florida.
"From where I'm sitting, it looks like they're handing it out like candy on Halloween," he said. "Anybody that goes down there can come back with carloads of pills, and then they're dumped out on our streets."
To addicts in Kentucky, Florida is “like the promised land,” said Cooper, the Greenup County sheriff.
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Local police, federal agents and medical officials in Florida are targeting illicit prescription drug sales. The state legislature recently passed, and Gov. Charlie Crist signed, a law to regulate and monitor pain clinics, although the procedure won't be fully implemented until late next year.
Kentucky and most other states already have such monitoring laws in place, making it much more difficult for addicts and dealers to buy large amounts of prescription medication by going from clinic to clinic – a common practice in Florida.
Families left behind
Karen Shay, a dentist in Morehead, Ky., also knows too well the cost and pain of prescription drug abuse. Two years ago, her 19-year-old daughter, Sarah, died from an overdose after partying with friends, who dropped her body off at a hospital and drove away.
Sarah Shay and Savannah Kissick had been childhood friends.
"We have two young ladies that were beautiful, talented and intelligent, had the world by the tail, could have done anything and they're gone,” Shay said. “They're gone."
In her work, Shay also sees the desperation of drug addicts, some of whom have visited her office seeking pain medication for fake dental problems. Because of Kentucky's prescription monitoring law, Shay is able to run computer checks on patients she suspects of doctor-shopping for painkillers and turns many of them away.
"If [the painkillers are] taken the way they're supposed to be, it's a very powerful, helpful drug. But when they're not taken the way they're supposed to, then it becomes a killer," she said. "It's amazing when you look in the paper, how many people have died from drug abuse. "
During a recent visit to the cemetery where Sarah is interred, Shay cleared away the dying flower petals and placed a colorful pinwheel below her daughter's crypt. Looking upward to the plaque showing Sarah's name and picture, she quietly spoke the words, "Hi, Baby," then bowed her head.
"When you lose somebody like that, it puts a hole in your heart that nothing else will ever fill," she said.
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NBC News / Vince Genova Sarah Shay seen before her tragic drug overdose. |
For the Kissicks, whose loss is more recent and raw, anger mingles with grief.
"It's time that people were held accountable for what's happening. I think it's time that someone was held responsible,” Lynn Kissick said.
The parents want to raise awareness about the problem so that others don’t have to endure their pain.
"The drugs, they don't discriminate and it can happen to anybody," said Sam Kissick. "You may never have any idea that your child is exploring or fooling with prescription drugs at all, until they've already gone too far with it."
Sitting at their dining room table recently, Savannah's parents sorted through colorful photographs of their daughter.
"She had a beautiful smile," said Lynn. In a quiet voice, Sam agreed, "That she did."
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