Deaths from overdoses of prescription drugs are increasing in the United States, especially in West Virginia, according to a study released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prescription painkillers account for the most fatal overdoses from legal drugs in West Virginia.

According to Reuters, the CDC studied abuse patterns in West Virginia, where overdose rates have risen 550 percent between 1999 and 2004. They found in 2006 out of the 295 people who had died of drug overdose, 63 % had used drugs without a prescription while 21 % had obtained their drugs from five or more doctors which indicated that they had been "doctor shopping" to get the drugs. The report, which appears in the December 10th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, underscores that methadone, used in substance abuse treatment and increasingly for pain relief, was involved in 40 percent of all deaths.

The epidemic is most pronounced in rural areas across the country. Studies have show that in many areas in central Appalachian, where much of the nation's coal is mined, people are suffering the effects of widespread prescription drug addictions. Indeed, the booming Appalachian coal industry is resulting in booming pain medication addictions and accidental overdoses throughout the region more than a decade after the narcotic painkiller OxyContin exploded in southwestern Virginia and much of Appalachia. Today the abuse of prescription painkillers in the region is worse than ever, methadone leading the way.

Coal miners often work the heavy-equipment used for strip mining and mountaintop removal making these laborers the major victims of this epidemic. Having been injured in mining accidents and suffering high disability rates, many of them require constant chronic pain management. But what starts in a doctor's office often leads to coal miners getting caught in a cycle of painkiller abuse, drifting deeper into addiction and drug dependency.