I want to reply to all who have seen the report and to those in this topic.  I agree that the Native Americans are treated poorly and I believe that this report should have been about them and not about us.  I say us because I live in Majestic Kentucky.  That is Zip Code 41547 for you to look on mapquest to see where exactly I am from.  I am genuinely offended by this report.  Pike County Ky reportedly has more millionaires in it than anywhere else east of the Mississippi.  I say reportedly because that is what was spouted off by our politicians referencing the upcoming census data.  The reason for this is Coal.  I am not one of those millionaires and I only know 3 of them personally. 

Eastern Ky has problems that is for sure.  There is more drug abuse here than I saw when I lived in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Houston.  That is right some of us do leave and then come back when we are ready to settle down.  I have a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice and am working towards a Masters Degree in ublic Administration.  We have a 4 year college in Pikeville and a Medical schol on that same campus.  Dianne Sawyer went to the hollows so that she could show the most deplorable of situations.  There are lots of jobs here if a person wants to work and not draw SSI and Welfare and abuse Prescription Drugs.  I capitalize that because I wrote a paper for one of my classes and cited a report that stated that a recent study... Last year ... labeled Pike County and Mingo County as the number one place in America for prescription drug abuse. 

Doctors move here from all over the country and set up Pain Clinics which are nothing more than legal drug dealers; and your taxes pay for the pills they are abusing.  She should have reported on this.   I was at one time an investigator for the State of West Virginia Child Abuse unit.  All of the allegations I investigated regarding substance abuse had to do with prescription drug abuse and n ot one of them had private insurance.

There are those here who do not have an education, but that is because they chose not to pursue one.  They chose to work in the coal mines in order to ensure that you can read this post.  The average coal miner in Appalachia earns 65000 to 120000 per year.  The average college graduate earns less that 35000 here, this is the reason for not having an education not the lack of opportunity.

Most of us still have our teeth and we don't all have tattoos.  You can not even find a bar in Pike county as it is a dry county.