Wyoming County’s addition to High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area long overdue
BECKLEY, W.Va. — Another tool was added to Wyoming County’s arsenal for the continuing fight against drugs in that county.
Rep. Nick Rahall announced Wednesday that Wyoming will be added to the Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), enabling law enforcement there to receive additional federal resources to help further drug control efforts.
We applaud the action and say that it is long overdue.
It was in Wyoming’s Twin Falls State Park that one of the first summits on the pill epidemic was held. Rahall brought federal, state and local forces together to discuss solutions.
At that time in 2011, former Wyoming prosecutor Rick Staton said the county ranked among the worst places in the nation for deaths attributed to drug overdoses, averaging almost two a week.
According to The Register-Herald’s archives, Rahall and Sen. Jay Rockefeller have been in a hard push since 2011 to have the county brought under the HIDTA umbrella.
But just giving the county HIDTA designation won’t automatically make the drug problem disappear…
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