West Virginians simply want a fair shake
All legal eyes were on West Virginia last week, following two court decisions that, as usual, came too late in the day to help actual West Virginians, or ignored their plight altogether.
In West Virginia vs. Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court more or less ruled that the EPA couldn’t do what private industry is already doing: quitting coal. The EPA was a convenient bogeyman, but the real culprits are cheaper fuels like natural gas and renewables, and an exhaustion of coal that can be easily and cheaply mined.
The coal industry itself deceived its dependents, insisting there was such a thing as “clean coal” and that the government could assure the sustainability of their industry — which it possibly could, but only through taxpayer subsidies of coal, and higher taxation on renewables.
Nor did West Virginians get a break when a federal judge ruled that the pharmaceutical companies that flooded communities with opioids were not responsible for the generational health crisis they created, even as their executives reaped massive profits while sharing jokes about the “pillbillies” whose lives, hopes and dreams they were destroying.
West Virginians never asked much in the way of help, they just wanted a fair shake. They’re not getting it at any level, and the numbers tell what happens when a state gets left behind. Last month, the state recorded its 7,000th COVID death, the disease having killed one out of every 250 West Virginians. Lower vaccination rates are part of the reason, but COVID mortality is also an indicator of unwell communities. Those already suffering from diabetes, obesity and heart disease are more likely to die if they become infected.
A person born anywhere else in America can expect to live five years longer than the average West Virginian. People born in Paraguay live longer; an infant born in Chile has a greater chance of survival. The social costs are evident as well. Teen birth, divorce and murder rates are all substantially higher than they are in hedonistic New York.
West Virginia was one of a handful of states that made a fortune from fracking at the onset of the 21st century. But while other states saved and invested these revenues wisely, out-of-state property owners played on West Virginia’s increasingly red and inexperienced lawmakers, convincing them to give the people’s treasure away to nonresident corporations.
Like an impoverished person who hits the lottery, in no time West Virginia was broke once again.
The state’s nest egg was gone. Coal jobs were going. Environmentalists who accelerated coal’s demise offered nothing in the way of job replacement — most of them never thought about the lives that would be destroyed along with the dirty fuel they so despised.
For the drug companies the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. West Virginians were in pain, physically, economically and socially, when Big Pharma came along peddling pills. Given no healthy option, an addiction to coal was replaced by an addiction to opioids. People with no work and nothing to do found an escape down a never-ending corridor, unable to go back, because even when jobs came along there was no way to pass a drug test.
Out-of-state industries had fleeced the people, now drug companies were happy to do the same, as their virtual employees in the legislature and on the bench gave them cover.
Today opioids put more West Virginians underground than coal companies do, but it appears no one will be held accountable for that, either. There is no law against carpet-bombing a state with highly addictive medicines, because it never dawned on anyone there would ever be a need for one.
Instead, prosecutors have had to resort to statutes — in this most recent case, nuisance laws — that don’t really fit. “The opioid crisis has taken a considerable toll on the citizens of Cabell County and the City of Huntington,” wrote Judge David Faber. “(But) the extension of the law of nuisance to cover the marketing and sale of opioids is inconsistent with the history and traditional notions of nuisance.”
In other words, I feel your pain, but — see ya.
Never mind that dumping 30 million pills on a community of 3,000 was inconsistent with the history and tradition with anything anyone has known about medicine ever. To the corporations, not the people, goes the benefit of the doubt.
Today, West Virginia’s deeply red populace is scorned and their poverty mocked by liberal America, while conservative America robs them of their natural resources for pennies on the dollar while finding new ways to take what little disposable income they have through side hustles that include the sale of pills and cheap political merchandise.
Fiercely independent, West Virginians hate the idea of outside help. But a level playing field and a fair chance shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Coal deceit, flood of opioids show greed, disregard for West Virginia
