Fighting for survival l Hidden America: Children of the Mountains PART 3/6

Diane Sawyer's special "Hidden America" report sheds light on the prescription drug problem plaguing families in Appalachia. [Original Air Date 2/13/2009]

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Fighting for survival

[Music]

Narrator: Joblessness in the Inez area is attributable primarily

to a general lack of industrialization and

losses in the coalmining industry.

Diane Sawyer: Inez, Kentucky, 1964.

Lyndon Baines Johnson declares his war on poverty here.

And then four years later,

Bobby Kennedy inspires Appalachian pride,

as he travels over 200 miles in two days,

to hear the stories of the families.

Kennedy: All of us working together.

All of us recognizing our responsibilities,

in my judgment, we can have some success.

Sawyer: Back then Bill Gorman was a TV reporter

walking the streets of Hazard with Bobby Kennedy.

Forty-one years later, he's the mayor of Hazard,

walking the same street with me, and saying it is better.

Gorman: It's changed a whole lot after Bobby visited here.

Diane Sawyer: There's been money for new schools and highways

which helped many communities flourish.

Speaker: You have two Appalachia's today.

Communities very similar to what one would find

in many suburban places all across the country.

Sawyer: But up in the hills, it's a different story.

Coal companies have taken billions in

profit out of the mountains.

Dee Davis: We end up making huge sacrifices.

And then if you look at the area,

you see people are poor.

The educational attainment is less.

And often people are not as healthy.

So whatever opportunity is supposed to be there,

it just hasn't arrived.

Sawyer: Today in the depressed counties of central Appalachia,

families have an average annual income less than

the cost of a new car.

The second lowest in the nation.

And the trash, a kind of defeatism, left on the lawn.

Sawyer: But what's happened to pride?

Ron Eller: I think pride is still there.

The difference between urban places and Appalachia

is the availability of government resources to

pick up that trash.

Mountain people, I don't think, have given up.

But when you organize and you fight and you struggle

and things don't change markedly for you,

then you step back and you find a

way for your family to survive.

Sawyer: And one thriving industry for survivors,

dealing prescription drugs.

Speaker: Particularly in Appalachia,

we've seen it be kind of a sacrifice area.

Where big pharmaceutical companies are

able to dump drugs into the area and

really get off fairly scot-free.

Sawyer: In 2007, Purdue Pharma, the company

which markets the potent Oxycontin,

was fined 635 million dollars for

deliberately misleading people about the

addictiveness of the drug.

At the time, doctors in the

mountains had been prescribing it

for everything from back pain to arthritis.

And while Lortab and Xanax are

often obtained through Medicaid,

robbery often produces the Oxycontin for dealers.

Speaker: They can make more money in one

weekend here in Harlan County than they can in

an entire month on the big city streets

of Chicago or Detroit or New York.

Sawyer: Karen Engle is executive director of the

law enforcement and education initiative,

Operation Unite.

We're told some prescription drugs like Xanax and Lortab

have a street price from five to

fifteen dollars per pill.

But OxyContin, even if you can only get it once a month,

is the prize.

Sawyer: So what's the street value of a pill now?

Karen: Of an Oxycontin? 120 bucks.

Speaker: 120 dollars.

Sawyer: Here in Harlan?

Speaker: Yes.

Sawyer: Our driver, an undercover detective,

says the dealer could be anyone next door.

Speaker: It's just survival.

It's not -- not trying to hurt anybody or nothing.

You know?

Speaker: I think you see drug addiction in communities

where people don't see a place for themselves.

They don't see a trajectory.

Sawyer: A babysitter deals OxyContin while a

child watches cartoons.

A mayor indicted for trading pills for votes.

So he pled not guilty.

And for every adult dealing or using drugs,

a child begins to drown.

Five years ago, WYMT Mountain News

profiled six-year-old Erika Floyd on Mother's Day,

her mother in jail for the fourth DUI.

Erika: She drinks sometimes.

But that's not right for me.

But I love her.

Sawyer: Erika kept a drawer of pictures for

when her mom comes home.

Crossing her fingers every time the phone rings.

Erika: [Singing]

Follow me ... everything is all right.

I believe you.

I don't know the rest.

Sawyer: Erika then. Erika now, 11 years old.

Still trying to help the mother,

now battling addiction to Lortab and OxyContin.

Erika: She's almost 50.

And if I don't get her out of this town, soon,

then she'll probably die any day.

Sawyer: Mother and daughter talk of love.

Erika: our relationship is like --

Mom: Peas and carrots.

Erika: Oreo and ice cream.

Sawyer: Amid the broken promises.

Mom: She's all I have.

And it's more to me than any drug.

More than anything in this world.

I'm sorry you've had to go through this.

Erika: it's okay.

Mom: No it's not okay.

Sawyer: Social services forces her mother into rehab.

Erika: I love you.

Mom: I love you too.

Erika: Mommy! I love you Mommy!

Sawyer: But soon, Erika's mother's back home.

And sliding again.

And Erika can be seen walking alone through her town.

Just boarded up.

Abandoned by the coal company.

Erika: The reason I go on these walks is

because I want to get away from my mom.

When she's like that.

Speaker: She's just vulnerable.

I pick her up on the streets at night.

Sometimes walkin'.

Sawyer: Her school counselor tells us

Erika's trying to hang on in classes.

I hear that you pulled your math grade up.

Erika: I had an F before.

Then I brang it up to a C.

And then now it's two points away from an A.

Sawyer: Congratulations.

How about with you and your mom?

Do you know what kind of drugs she was doing?

Erika: Huh-uh.

Sawyer: Did you see her?

Erika: No.

She didn't want me to see her.

But I knew it was happening.

Sawyer: How'd you know?

Erika: She had that look in her eyes when she lied to me.

Sawyer: why do you think she does it?

Erika: Pain. Misery.

Sawyer: What would you say to everybody out there

about being a kid here?

Erika: You gotta make the better of it.

She's still alive.

That -- just to keep on hugging on tight.

Sawyer: When we last saw her,

her mother still struggling with addiction,

the house where they had been living burned,

and they had to move out.

But once more, Erika was refusing to give up hope.

Erika: It's just a wakeup call from God saying,

it's a new start.