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The first indictment has been issued in a criminal probe into last year’s explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine that left 29 coal miners dead.
The mine’s Chief of Security Hughie Stover has been accused of lying to investigators and trying to destroy mine records, reports the Charleston Gazette.
Stover is accused of falsely telling federal agents in January 2011 that Massey’s Performance Coal Co. had a policy dating back to 1999 that forbade security guards from giving advance notice of inspections. The indictment alleges that Stover “had himself directed and trained security guards … to give advance notice by announcing the presence of an MSHA inspector over” the mine radio.
Governor Steve Beshear is the latest Kentucky official to ask Florida Governor Rick Scott to rethink his plans to cut a prescription drug tracking system.
It’s estimated that many of the prescription pills that are abused in eastern Kentucky come from Florida. In 2009, that state’s legislature approved a system to track prescriptions and reduce the number of so-called pill mills.
As part of his plan to cut spending, Governor Scott has proposed cutting the program. That first prompted a response from Congressman Hal Rogers of Kentucky, who asked his fellow Republican Scott to reconsider, saying that Kentuckians and Floridians alike are dying of prescription drug overdoses.
In a letter released Tuesday, Beshear echoed those sentiments. Kentucky has a prescription tracking system, and Beshear credits it for pushing pill mills out of the commonwealth.
A Greenup County sheriff has also reportedly taken issue with Scott’s plans to cancel the tracking program.
Late last year, Kentucky State Police trooper John Hawkins told WFPL the increase in meth lab busts was so sharp that police were on track to find more than one thousand before the end of the year.
Kentucky State Police (KSP) released the 2010 methamphetamine lab statistics today and the number indicates an all-time high in the Commonwealth. KSP reports that there were 1,080 meth labs found during 2010, exceeding all previous year totals.
The top five counties with the highest incidents of meth lab occurrences were Jefferson (154 labs), Laurel (113 labs), Warren (70 labs), Barren (57 labs) and Hardin (53).
There’s legislation pending in the General Assembly that would make decongestant and meth ingredient pseudoephedrine available by prescription only. The bill has the support of many law enforcement officials (but not all), and it has a number of opponents as well. It’s not clear whether the bill will pass both chambers of the General Assembly, but if it does, it’s also not clear whether Governor Steve Beshear will sign it.
Like their counterparts in many states, Kentucky Justice Cabinet officials are having a hard time obtaining a drug needed for lethal injection executions.
The AP reports today that thirteen states have asked the U.S. Justice Department for help getting sodium thiopental. (Kentucky’s supply expired in October.) Those states are: Alabama; Colorado; Delaware; Florida; Idaho; Mississippi; Missouri; Nevada; Oregon; Tennessee; Utah; Washington; and Wyoming.
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia and Tennessee are looking to buy the drug from England. Nebraska purchased sodium thiopental from India.
by Graham Shelby
Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear hasn’t decided if he’ll sign a bill that would make medicine containing the meth ingredient and decongestant pseudoephedrine available by prescription-only.
The Governor says he wants to reduce the number of meth labs in the state, but is concerned about the effect of the measure on law-abiding citizens. In addition, he says it’s hard to know if any new law enforcement system is going to be effective before it’s implemented.
“When we first put our system that we have now in, for about the first two years, the lab numbers really dropped, and then of course they came back up as people figured out somehow how to get around the system. And I’m concerned that I don’t know how effective it will be,” he says.
Beshear says he intends to listen to the debate in Frankfort before making up his mind. That debate will continue next week. Proponents of the bill say the measure would drastically limit meth-makers access to a key component of the illegal drug methamphetamine.
Legislation that would make over-the-counter cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine prescription-only is making its way through the General Assembly. Here’s the legislative update and the reaction from one law enforcement official.
The issue has divided lawmakers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and law enforcement officials, and it will be interesting to see if Kentucky follows the example set by Oregon and Mississippi.
Kentucky journalist Jim Higdon‘s nonfiction book about the Cornbread Mafia is tentatively set to be published next year under the Globe/Pequot imprint Lyons Press.
Higdon posted the news on The Marion County Line Wednesday.
In 1989, federal investigators called the Marion County-based Cornbread Mafia the largest domestic marijuana producing organization. The release date for Higdon’s book is April 20th, 2012. Seriously.
The bill that would make over the counter cold medicine that could be used to make meth prescription-only is making its way through the General Assembly, and while law enforcement officials generally favor the legislation, it’s being met with stiff opposition from drug manufacturers (the ones who make the legal drugs. Meth manufactureres likely oppose the bill as well, they probably don’t hire lobbyists).
Mississippi and Oregon have seen a prescription law lead to a drop in meth lab busts. And there’s evidence that merely tracking cold medicine purchases is not only ineffective, but makes matters worse by creating an illegal market for Sudafed, etc. (Prescription drug abuse is also a continuing problem in the U.S.)
What I don’t often hear from officials on either side of the debate is some response or echoing of the most common complaint I hear from the public…prescriptions require visits to the doctor. That’s inconvenient, but for many people, it’s impossible. For the uninsured and under insured, a visit to the doctor can break the bank.
The debate on how to fight meth is getting more interesting as more and more states consider prescription-only laws. The question of how to fight a scourge without punishing the innocent is raised constantly, and it’s fascinating to see how various lawmakers answer it.
Programs that track the purchase of cold medicine that may be used to make meth is not stopping the meth trade. In fact, it’s creating more criminals.
That’s what the Associated Press found in a recent investigation. The programs are designed to keep individuals from purchasing enough over the counter drugs to make meth. For years, manufacturers sidestepped these laws by recruiting smurfs (sometimes called smurfers). The AP reveals that not only does smurfing increase several years after a tracking system is put in place in a state, but the smurfs have created a sizeable illegal market for legal drugs.
The stricter alternative is to make certain cold medicines prescription-only. But scheduling drugs creates a new set of problems:
Oregon began requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine products in 2006. Mississippi became the second state to do so in July, and Missouri’s governor is asking lawmakers to follow suit in 2011.
If more states do the same, it could be devastating for makers of cold and sinus pills. The pseudoephedrine market is estimated at more than $550 million annually.
Opponents of prescription laws say they punish mostly law-abiding consumers for the crimes of a relative few.
But many law enforcement officials say it’s hard to argue with Oregon’s success. The state had 191 meth incidents in 2005, the year before the prescription-only law. By 2009, it had 12.
The Edit: WFPL's Gabe Bullard blogs the news 