Stakeholder #2

In this post, I will write about another major stakeholder in my controversy for Project 1.

HelenOnline, "No drugs sign in Dias Tavern" 23 April 2014. Wikimedia Commons.

Another major stakeholder for my controversy is Willis Duncan. He is an older man from West Virginia with grey thinning hair and grey stubble on his chin. His expression shows how mentally and physically exhausted he is at this point in his life. Seventeen years ago he crushed his sternum and broke his ribs in a coal mining accident; evidently leading him to become a prescription drug addict. In his interviews, Duncan wore washed out jeans and an old jacket, proving that he might be economically unstable. 

Being form West Virginia, he has a very distinctive thick southern accent in his raspy voice, along with a hopeless and disappointed tone. The audience is able to tell how frustrated he is with this nationwide prescription drug epidemic. Having first-hand experience with doctor negligence, Duncan is definitely a stakeholder that blames doctors for this controversy. Looking at photos of Willis Duncan in his younger, pre-addiction days, he looks much healthier and happier. He had a full head of brown hair and a thick beard, wearing his coal mining uniform.

Three Specific Claims made by Willis Duncan:

1.     “If I didn’t have ten pain pills, I wouldn’t go to work. Bottom line.”

2.     “The only time you went in to see a doctor was to get your pills raised.”

3.     Duncan said he never told a doctor he needed help. “Never. Because you’d get used to them, and you didn’t know how to function without them,” he explained.

Duncan’s claims are valid because he is explaining his first-hand experience with prescription drug abuse. Objectively, these claims carry a lot of weight because it gives the audience a better idea of how serious this controversy is. He definitely reaches the audience’s sensitive side; it is difficult to hear about his life struggles and not feel sympathy for him.

These claims are different from the first stakeholders because Duncan Willis directs the blame entirely on the negligence of doctors. He does have one thing in common with Greg Stumbo and Jack Conway: he understands the importance of America’s prescription drug epidemic.