}NESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2009 Vo,ume 116, Number34
Berkeley S
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Founded in 1893 by S.S. Buzzerd
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by Kate Shunney
Part One of a three-part series
At 20, Morgan County native Robert
Dugan, III is rising toward a bright future.
Now a junior at Shepherd University, Dugan
has a life that many envy. He has a car, a full-
time job and plans to attend law school.
Unfortunately, many of Dugan's peers are
light years away from a future like his, their
plans having been derailed by heroin and pre-
scription drug abuse.
The overdose death of a 19-year-old local
teen in September 2008 sparked an awakening
for a group of young people in the county.
"You hear about an overdose and you think
it's just one person, but it's not," Dugan said.
Dugan said he was offered drugs all the
time during his teen years in Berkeley
Springs. At first, he avoided the drugs because
that was a deal he'd made with himself. He
stayed away from them for a different reason
as he got older.
"If you make it long enough without doing
drugs, then it's just seeing the effects on peo-
ple that made me stay away from them,"
Dugan said.
He watched his friends sell their cars and
stereos to pay for their habit. He saw them
miss work and lose their jobs.
"Drug use really started during the sopho-
more year in high school. You heard about
people grinding pills in the spine of their
books and snorting them in class," he recalled.
As some of his friends were pulled into
deeper and deeper drug use, Dugan distanced
himself. He did it partly to keep his future
intact, and partly to avoid being associated
with the teen drug scene.
"Friends got to the point where they
wouldn't do it around me," he said.
LOCALLY-SEIZED HEROIN, PILLS AND DRUG PARAPHENALIA are some of the
wide variety of items police have encountered in Morgan County's illegal drug trade. The large
green pill is Hydrocodone, the large white pill is Oxycodone, the small white tablets are
Lorazepam and the oblong pills are generic Percocet. Also pictured is a small baggie of heroin,
a heroin cooking spoon, syringes used to inject heroin and a straw used to snort crushed pills.
Snorting prescription drugs delivers the substance straight to the brain, bypassing the time-
release coating on the pills.
Search for help
The heroin overdose of one of their own
shone a bright light on the addiction.
"They say to themselves, 'It'll never
happen to me. But it if can happen to him,
in the same breath, it can happen to me,'"
Dugan said in an interview early this .
month,
"A lot of people I knew wanted to get off it.
Nobody starts out saying 'I want to be addict-
ed to heroin,'" Dugan'said.
85¢
SCHOOL HAS STARTED
Unfortunately, most of the young addicts
who decided they want to stop using didn't
necessarily get the help they needed right
away.
"People who think you can just stop are
misinformed," said Dugan.
Some addicts were told they would have to
go to Martinsburg or Morgantown for a drug
rehab program.
"Help is just not available. Even when it is
available, there's a waiting list and it's costly,"
Dugan said.
"I have a friend who told me, 'If you can
afford to get help, you don't have areal prob-
lem'," said Dugan.
He's been told that addicts seeking help
have turned to buying suboxone, a modern
opiate replacement pill similar to methadone,
on the street.
"They end up buying it from the people who
used to Sell them heroin," he said.
"You need to take the people who want help
and are caught in this vice and give them
help," Dugan said.
"There is a large disconnect between people
who have kids and those that don't have kids.
Because the largest voting group are people
who aren't affected by this, there's not a lot of
resources or pressure to deal with it," Dugan
said.
Despite Dugan's impression that Morgan
County's drug problem only affects a certain
part of the community, a two-month investiga-
tion into local heroin and prescription drug
abuse reveals that drug addictions touch all
age and income groups, and affect not just the
addicts, but their children, parents, neighbor-
hoods, schools, police, courts and every
Morgan County taxpayer.
see HEROIN page 9
commissioners" .......
by Kate Shunney
Supporters of an anti-chaining law for pets
in Morgan County ramped up their campaign
at last Thursday's County Commission meet-
ing, filling the county meeting room with
backers and experts in the field of animal cru-
elty.
They urged county officials to write an
ordinance that would limit the conditions "
~under which dogs or other pets could be
chained up on private land.,
More than 35 local residents attended the
meeting, many wearing tee-shirts saying
"Unchain Morgan County."
This was the second time in two months
that Unchain Morgan County organizer Gary
Brock had brought the proposal to the com-
missioners.
The ordinance he has proposed would
. require chains or tethers for dogs to be at least
eight feet long and allow for movement and
access to food, water and shelter.
Tethering would be prohibited between the
hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Other provisions include specific guidelines
restricting the duration of tethering during
extreme weather. It would also be illegal to
chain dogs within 500 feet of a school or a
bus stop, to chain dogs younger than four
months old, and to chain unsprayed animals.
Issue is widespread
Brock said he was continuing to educate
people about the cruelty of chaining dogs for
'long periods.
A LAW RESTRICTING HOW LONG
LOCAL DOGS could be chained is under
consideration by the Morgan County
Commissioners.
Adam Goldfarb, of the Humane Society of
the US, spoke about similar legal efforts in
other counties and states.
He said over 100 communities in 30 states
have passed anti-tethering laws like the one
being considered locally.
Those towns and counties have seen a
reduction in animal cruelty calls and dog bites
as a result, he said.
see ANTI-CHAINING LAW page 9
by Kate Evans
Morgan County Health
Department officials have
been'preparing for the onset
of swine flu or H1N1 influen-
za in the area.
The county has no reported
cases of swine flu so far, said
Lee Fowler, Health Depart-
ment administrator and public
information officer, on
Monday.
The Health Department is
coordinating their swine flu
response with all area med-
ical providers, Morgan
• County Schools, county offi-
cials and emergency services
personnel.
Swine flu cases nationally
have been estimated at more
than one million, with most
states reporting local and
not widespread occurrences
of the disease. Some 7,983
hospitalizations and 522
deaths have occurred across
the country to date.
West Virginia cases
West Virginia has had a
total of 344 cases of laborato-
ry-confirmed cases of swine
flu as of August 12.
Berkeley County has had 12
cases and Jefferson County
six cases.
There have been 23 hospi- seasonal flu vaccine clinic
talizations so far from swine and then a clinic for each
flu in West Virginia, but no dose of the swine flu vac-
fatalities, cine.
Most cases of the H1N1 Other clinic locations are
swine flu have been mild, but the Morgan County school
some hospitalizations and board office for school
deaths have occurred in chil- employees; Paw Paw Schools
dren and youth'under 18 and and the Paw Paw Senior
pregnant women. Center; CNB Bank, Inc.
Swine flu emerged in the for their employees; the
spring. Cases are expected Senior Life Services of
to jump this fall with the Morgan County; and the
beginning of the school courthouse complex for
year. county employees, Fowler
Swine flu vaccine said.
A swine flu vaccine proba- The Health Department
bly won't be ready until after does those locations every
mid-October and will be year for the seasonal flu, he
administered in two doses said.
that are three weeks apart, Depending on the severity
Fowler said. of the swine flu outbreak,
The Health Department has health department staff could
tentatively scheduled a series also take vaccines to the
of clinics to dispense season- nursing home. They would
al flu vaccines and the swine want to avoid big public
flu vaccines, meetings that would spread
Clinics for seasonal flu the disease more, Fowler
vaccines will start at the said.
beginning of October. Swine Agreements are already
flu clinics will begin in late in place to use the schools
October. for ma s immunization if
Four flu vaccinatior~ clinics " it becomes necessary, he
will be held at the Morgan said.
County Health Department.
Other locations will have
three flu clinics, first a See SWINE FLU page 14
by Kate Shunney
Local businessman and for-
mer commissioner Bob Ford
told the current commission-
ers last Thursday that they
should meet with Governor
Joe Manchin and tell him to
"call off the wolves" when it
comes to getting state
approval for a new War
Memorial Hospital.
Ford, who served as county
commissioner from 2000-
2006, said Manchin had
injected himself into negotia-
tions to sell the local hospital
before it was put up for pub-
lic sale, pushing Morgan
County to sell the county-
owned facility to West
Virginia University Hospitals
instead of Valley Health
Systems.
"When he takes the posi-
tion that he doesn't have any-
thing in this, that's ludicrous,
because WVU came here
because of the governor. They
didn't come here at our
request or at their own
request, but at the request of
the governor," Ford said at
last Thursday's commission
meeting.
Big plans
Ford recounted how he and
Commissioners Tommy
Swaim;and Glen Stotler and
County Administrator Bill
Clark approached Manchin in
2006 with an economic
development plan that
involved a new hospital, the
northern end of a U.S. 522
bypass, a hiking-biking trail
and a food manufacturing
plant for Fresh Express, a
bagged salad company.
The county had already
been involved in negotiations
with U.S. Silica to buy 77
acres, for a new War
Memorial Hospital, but sand
mine officials weren't com-
fortable with added traffic on
the current U.S. 522, which
cuts through their operations,
Ford said.
1
In preparation for placing
the new hospital on U.S.
Silica land, county represen-
tatives had already secured a
federal funding commitment
from Shelley Moore Capito
.for a new access road con-
necting to U.S. 522.
"We thought, if we could
pull this deal off and per-
suade the governor into build-
ing the first half of the
bypass, the sand mine was
going to sell Us the land for
the hospital. The sand mine
had adequate land close to the
river where we could locate
the salad company, along
with the hiker-biker trail. We
thought we had a pretty good
economic development
scheme," Ford said.
"I started with my pre-
sentation and probably didn't
get more than two sentences
into it. I mentioned we want-
ed to build a new hospital and
that was "it. He looks at me
and says, 'Bob, who runs
your hospital?'" Ford engineering and estimating
recalled, costs for the northern end of
When Ford told Manchin the bypass, which was
the county was a year and a expected to cost $45 million.
half into a 10-year manage- •Ford, Stotler and Swaim
ment contract with Valley organized a letter-writing
Health, the governor replied, campaign in favor of the
"You need to be with WVU." bypass after Maddox
Ford said Manchin put pointed out that his office
him in touch with Highway had received only letters of
Commissioner Paul Maddox opposition to the road.
to talk about the details of
see GOVERNOR page 5
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The Morgan Messenger will be cl°sedM°nday'
September 7 in observance of Labor Day.
In order to meet the deadline, we must ask that
news items and advertisements for the September 9
issue be in by Friday, September 4.
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