Access and cultural issues make alcohol, prescription pills rural drugs of choice

"Alcohol and non-heroin opiates are the drugs of choice in rural populations ... while heroin and cocaine top the list in urban areas, according to a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration," reports Aaron Levin of Psychiatric News. Methamphetamine usage was about the same in rural and urban areas, "despite the common assumption that meth is largely a rural problem," Levin writes. Rural people also use slightly more marijuana.

Higher use of alcohol and non-heroin opiates, or prescription painkillers, in rural areas may reflect access issues, SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment director H. Wesley Clark said. "Illegal drugs may be harder to conceal in the pipeline to rural areas, or legal substances may be less stigmatized." Rural people steal about 67 percent of the prescription pills they abuse from friends or family. The rest come from doctors, University of New Mexico psychiatry professor Snehal Bhatt told Levin.

About 67 percent of rural users started using before 18, compared to 53 percent of urban users. This probably leads to higher rates of rural youth binge drinking and driving drunk, according to a University of Southern Maine study. "Rural youth, their families and peers are less likely to disapprove of youth drinking than urban youth, risk factors that are associated with greater likelihood of adolescent alcohol use," researcher John Gale wrote in the study. (Read more)

Some Dollar General stores now sell beer; one Kentucky town, caught off guard, doesn't want it

Dollar General Corp., a mainstay in rural areas, many of which ban the sale of alcoholic beverages, has started selling beer in nearly 4,000 of its stores, where it's legal and where company officials think there's a demand, reports Nick Tabor of the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville. Of the company's 381 Kentucky stores, most of which are in rural areas, many of them "dry," 26 now sell beer.

That includes one in Crofton, population 750 and declining, a few miles north of Hopkinsville, where the city council officially declared six months ago that it didn't want alcohol sales in town. The city sent Dollar General a letter asking it to cancel plans to sell alcohol there, but has received no response, Mayor Dan Lacy told Tabor. “We have enough problems with drugs and everything now without something else coming in there,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a family store. So that’s what the people in Crofton expect.” (Wikipedia map)

As state law requires, the company posted a small legal notice in the New Era that it was applying for a beer license, as state law requires, giving the public 30 days to protest. But many residents of Crofton don't get the daily paper from the county seat, so they didn't see the notice or heard about it too late to meet the deadline.

The city hopes to hear back from Dollar General before taking further action, but County Attorney Mike Foster said it's likely too late for legal action because it "would be unusual for Kentucky's Alcoholic Beverage Control Licensure Board to consider a petition that was filed too late," Tabor reports. The New Era is mainly behind a paywall, but the story can be found here.

State and tribal courts report success in joint effort to help Native Americans get sober

A collaboration of state and trial courts in northern Minnesota to combat drug and alcohol addiction among Native Americans is reporting success, according to The Crime Report. Judges Korey Wahwassuck of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court and John Smith of Cass County Court addressed the National Criminal Justice Association National Forum about the partnership, known as Wellness Court, last week.

The Leech Lake court is working with courts in Cass and Itasca counties on the program, a variation on drug courts that exist in many counties across the U.S. in which participants are helped through a series of programs to curb their addiction. (Minnesota Indian Affairs Council map: Leech Lake Reservation and emblem)

The judges presented two success stories. One involved a mother of four who said she is now "an inspiration to her kids," and a father who had previously been through a dozen treatment programs, none of which worked except Wellness Court, which has kept him sober for 18 months. Wahwassuck said there's been a major "climate change" in his tribe. Members now talk about sobriety and recovery more than about heavy drinking. (Read more)

Editor makes sure her readers know that she was charged with DUI in another county

Terri Likens of the Roane County News in Tennessee is not the first newspaper editor to publish a prominent story about being charged with driving under the influence, but she is the first editor we know of (there are surely others) who did that about her arrest by a deputy sheriff in an adjoining county, where word of it might have been contained.

"I regularly talk to people who have ended up on the wrong side of the law and want to keep the incident out of the newspaper," Likens began her front-page column on May 2. "My answer is invariably a polite no-can-do. If the situation is a matter of our usual public record, it all goes in the paper. We make no exceptions."

Likens wrote that she couldn't give all the details, but "My blood-alcohol test was below the legal limit, and I respectfully and fully cooperated with everyone involved." She said the story was on Page One because "I can be considered a public figure," and "As someone whose newspaper has to publish the troubles of others, it is only fair that I have to publish my own, when circumstances warrant it."

Likens said she would plead not guilty and tell readers how the case turned out. She told us today what she will report in Friday's paper: "After the Cumberland County prosecutors reviewed the field test video, looked at the report and talked to the sheriff's deputy, the charge was dismissed on Thursday, June 7, cost to the state. It still cost me $1,200 in lawyers fees and bond, though." And she wanted us to tell you that she won the annual Max Heath Gold Star award for editors last month from Landmark Community Newspapers Inc. for day-to-day excellence in journalism: "The decision was made well before the DUI. But they did hold that up as an example of integrity during the presentation." A good punctuation mark, we think. (You can quote me in your column, Terri.)