Slowing prescription abuse needs different tactics

Southern Ohio region feeling the hurt more than northern communities

By WENDY MITCHELL, Staff Writer
Published:
Thursday, October 1, 2009 1:33 AM EDT
WEST UNION, Ohio -- Frozen in the last moments of their lives, photographs Adams County Sheriff Kimmy Rogers has of local drug users are not the kind families pass around at reunions.

"He looks like he is asleep, but he is dead," Rogers said of one photo depicting a man on a couch, debris of drug use still visible on the table nearby. "This is his wife, face down on the bed still standing at the side of the bed."

When authorities turned the dead woman over, a prescription bottle clutched in her curled hand helped explain what happened, he said.

"Since the first of the year there have been 16 deaths like these in Adams County," Rogers said.


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