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In neighboring Kentucky and Virginia, state-run drug testing programs have resulted....

In neighboring Kentucky and Virginia, state-run drug testing programs have resulted in the suspension of nearly 2,000 miners for drug use, according to Hamilton. "We fear a number of those individuals are working here in the state of West Virginia," he said.Beyond the mines, Hamilton explained that "druggies" weren’t the only victims of the situation—businesses and schools feel it too. Operators lose thousands of dollars after investing in an employee, only to lose the miner to drug or alcohol abuse.“It’s rampant through society. It’s in our schools. It’s in our industrialized world,” he says. “It’s no more, no less, prominent in coal mining than anywhere else.”