Illegal Drugs

Despite its natural beauty and scenic wonders, southern and eastern Kentucky is home to an ugly reality – the region is home to some of America’s highest rates of drug abuse.  The scourge of illegal drugs is by far the most devastating thing I have seen in my more than thirty five years of public service.  It has spread like wildfires, with prescription drugs and methamphetamine tearing apart families, ruining lives, and stretching the resources of our law enforcement and social service agencies to the absolute limit. 

To combat this terrible problem, I initiated Operation UNITE, a regional anti-drug initiative that empowers citizens groups and community leaders in the 29 counties of the Fifth Congressional District.  Created in 2003, UNITE has received nearly $37 million in funding to date while another $3.4 million has gone to construct and administer UNITE-affiliated treatment programs in the 5th Congressional District.

UNITE has three core components:

• Law Enforcement Investigation – UNITE has three regional narcotics task forces that focus on drug interdiction, confiscation and undercover operations.  UNITE's 36 law enforcement officers, in cooperation with federal, state, and local agents, target corrupt health care professionals and street-level drug dealers.
• Treatment – Increasing access to drug treatment is a main goal for UNITE.  New drug treatment centers in Manchester and Pikeville have been funded and UNITE has created a voucher program to help those that cannot afford treatment.  Drug Court is also being offered as an alternative to jail time for non-violent offenders that choose to become productive citizens. 
• Education – Education is a critical part of breaking the drug abuse cycle.  UNITE works through community coalitions to educate and activate individuals to no longer accept or tolerate the drug culture.  UNITE also funds 31 substance abuse counselors that work in schools throughout the region. These counselors provide intervention services for students who are beginning to experience substance abuse and/or are already experiencing substance abuse-related problems.

While UNITE is the latest step in fighting drug abuse, efforts to address this problem are not new.  Over the last eight years, I have helped direct $28 million in funding for marijuana eradication efforts of the Kentucky National Guard and the U.S. Forest Service in the Daniel Boone National Forest.  In 2004, law enforcement officials eradicated 129,627 marijuana plants DBNF -- over half the total number of marijuana plants eradicated across Kentucky that year. 

In 2001, I created a national program that helps states, like Kentucky, track and combat prescription drug abuse.  To date, Congress has appropriated $34 million for the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. Kentucky has used $940,000 in grants from the program to enhance and expand the KASPER system, which monitors prescription drug use in the Commonwealth.  In March 2005, Kentucky became the first state in the nation to provide a self-service, Internet-based system for tracking all schedule II-V prescription drugs. The program – called eKASPER– allows pharmacists, physicians, law enforcement and other authorized users to obtain KASPER reports 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Prior to the implementation of KASPER in 1999, state drug control authorities took an average of 156 days to complete investigations into abuse of the prescription drug system.  The average investigation time has now dropped to 16 days.  With the addition of eKASPER, reporting times have dropped significantly to allow for what is essentially real-time reporting.