Welcome to Oceana, a town in West Virginia, United States, where the population was 1,394 at the 2010 census, and where a large majority work in the coal mines or sell and abuse the prescription pain killer, Oxycontin. In this small, rural town surrounded by the Appalachian mountains, locals state that it is a 45 minute drive to anything like a movie theater, mall, or bowling alley, and there is nothing to do. The people are bored. Locals confessed that 10-15 years ago they used to use light recreational drugs like pot or alcohol, but nowadays kids are slipping other kids Oxycontin, and everybody knows somebody who has OD’d and died. This once safe community that “was a great place to raise kids”, where no one locked their doors, is now faced with residents who are afraid to walk down the street alone, girls who sell their bodies for $5-$10, and frequent home break-in’s. They need to feed their addictions, or curb the withdrawal symptoms. The elders and Christians won’t agree to bring a methadone maintenance clinic to the town due to the stigma attached, and feel that a clinic is worse than the addiction itself.
The locals no longer trust anyone from the outside, as they have been taken advantage of one too many times by people looking to steal their land’s mineral rights, and the corporate big wigs who had instructed the doctors of their coal mining grandfathers, to keep them productive for as long as possible and prescribe them whatever they needed.
Watch as the documentarian, Sean Dunne, follows a local male, a pregnant woman, two young adult females, a man with cancer mets to the brain and his wife, and others as they walk you through their habits.
Very sad.
This once safe community that “was a great place to raise kids”, where no one locked their doors, is now faced with residents who are afraid to walk down the street alone, girls who sell their bodies for $5-$10, and frequent home break-in’s. They need to feed their addictions, or curb the withdrawal symptoms.
The elders and Christians won’t agree to bring a methadone maintenance clinic to the town due to the stigma attached, and feel that a clinic is worse than the addiction itself.”
