The states with the worst prescription painkiller problem

[cali]

all the brouhaha about Vermont being this place with the biggest prescription drug problem in the country was clearly bullshit promulgated by Governor Shumlin to get big bucks- and it worked. But I knew at the time it was bullshit and said so here.



Doctors in some states seem to wield a freer hand issuing prescriptions for powerful narcotic medications, leading to wide variations in narcotic drug use among states, U.S. health officials reported Tuesday.

Physicians in Alabama -- the state with the highest number of narcotic painkiller prescriptions -- issued nearly three times as many of those prescriptions as doctors in Hawaii -- the lowest prescribing state, according to researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

<snip>

The CDC analysis of prescription trends also found that:

Ten of the highest prescribing states for narcotic painkillers are in the South, with Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia leading the nation.
The Northeast, especially Maine and New Hampshire, had the most prescriptions per person for long-acting/extended-release painkillers and for high-dose painkillers.
Prescriptions for oxymorphone varied the most between states, out of all narcotic medications. Nearly 22 times as many prescriptions were written for oxymorphone in Tennessee as were written in Minnesota.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-states-with-the-worst-prescription-painkiller-problem/

[randys1]

1. All of which makes it harder for those who really need strong painkillers for serious pain

especially long term pain...

I can almost appreciate why uneducated, poor people would need more drugs than others...keeps them from killing themselves

[cali]

3. I really haven't had a big problem

I take oxycodone. I started taking it almost 3 years ago. For the first 18 months (3 surgeries, diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) my orthopedic surgeon prescribed. Since then my PCP has. She's very cautious about prescribing opiates but she knows me and knows that I'm not addicted and won't become addicted. I largely take it at night when the pain wakes me up. My doc is leaving the practice at the end of this month and has already contacted my new doc to tell him that I need the prescription and that he shouldn't hesitate to prescribe it for me. Having said all that, the state mandated stuff is sort of intrusive and a pain in the ass, but considering the problems with these drugs, I don't mind it all that much.

I do worry that other people in my position aren't so fortunate.

[steve2470]

2. Florida did something right, maybe ?

The CDC pointed to Florida as a major success story.

"Florida shows that policy and enforcement matter. When you take serious action, you get encouraging results," Frieden said.

The death rate from prescription drug overdoses in Florida decreased 23 percent between 2010 and 2012, after legislators and law enforcement took actions to crack down on the widespread availability of narcotic painkillers, the CDC said.

The declines in Florida deaths linked to specific prescription painkillers -- oxycodone, methadone, and hydrocodone -- paralleled declines in prescribing rates for those drugs, the researchers said.

The other side of the coin is, if you really NEED a prescription for a painkiller, now it's probably extremely hard to get one.

[irisblue]

4. so how much has heroin usage gone up in Fla?

I can see here in Ohio with the state jumping on Doctors to limit rx narcotics, heroin now shows up on the nightly news, almost daily.
Treatment and careful control of rx meds does mean humans won't be in controllable with pharmacological controlled pain.

[steve2470]

5. I don't know but yea it's probably gone up nt

[blue neen]

6. Yep.

Same thing is happening with heroin in Pennsylvania. Just recently there was a woman in western PA who was dealing heroin from her hospital bed in the ICU----and this isn't in the big cities!