Last December, Dottie Neeley, 87, was fingerprinted, photographed, and
thrown in jail. Why? She was accused of selling drugs. She denies doing so, but even if she did, she's evidently not unique.
Since April 2004, Operation UNITE, a Kentucky antidrug task force created largely in response to rampant abuse of the powerful and sometimes lethal painkiller OxyContin, has charged more than 40 people age 60 or older with selling primarily prescription drugs in the mountains.
Prescription drugs? Yup. These folks are evidently selling off medicines that their doctors say they need. Why would they do that? Well, Floyd County jailer Roger Webb has a theory:
"When a person is on Social Security, drawing $500 a month, and they can sell their pain pills for $10 apiece, they'll take half of them for themselves and sell the other half to pay their electric bills or buy groceries."
So, in this story, all wrapped up in one tidy package and given the face of an elderly woman in a wheelchair, are several interconnected issues: poverty, drug laws, Social Security, Medicare and the healthcare system in general. And to top it all off, Webb kindly gives us a context:
"It used to be a rare occasion to have an elderly inmate," Webb said. "Five years ago, it was a rarity."
Five years ago? Let's see, that'd be 2000. What happened that year?