More people dying from prescription opioids than cocaine and heroin combined

[Sarah Ibarruri]

More Deaths From Opioids Than Cocaine, Heroin Combined
Feds Working to Stop America's Prescription Drug Problem
Caroline Cassels


November 1, 2011 — The number of overdose deaths from opioid prescription pain relievers (OPRs) in the United States has reached epidemic proportions and is now greater than fatalities from heroin and cocaine combined, according to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A big part of the problem, say CDC officials, is nonmedical use of prescription opioids. In 2010 approximately 12 million Americans age 12 or older reported nonmedical use of prescription pain killers in the past year. According to the report, enough prescription painkillers were prescribed in 2010 to medicate every American adult around the clock for a month. Although most of these pills were prescribed, many were diverted and ended up being abused.

The issue of prescription opioid abuse has been a particularly hot topic for the past year, culminating in an announcement by the US government of a federal crackdown to stem America's "national epidemic." Among other initiatives, the federal plan called for pharmaceutical companies to pay for targeted educational initiatives for prescribers. To better understand the scope of the problem, the CDC analyzed rates of fatal OPR overdoses, nonmedical use, sales, and treatment admissions. The investigators found that in 2008 drug overdoses in the United States caused 36,450 deaths. Of the 20,044 prescription drug overdose deaths, OPRs were involved in 14,800 (73.8%) — more than 3 times the rate in 1999. In addition, the researchers found that nearly half a million emergency department visits in 2009 were due to misuse or abuse of prescription painkillers. Death rates varied fivefold by state. States with lower death rates had lower rates of nonmedical use of OPR and OPR sales. During 1999-2008, overdose death rates, sales, and substance abuse treatment admissions related to OPR all increased substantially. The CDC is issuing the following recommendations:

•Following guidelines for responsible painkiller prescribing, including screening and monitoring for substance abuse and mental health problems;
•Prescribing opioid painkillers only when other treatments have not been effective for pain;
•Prescribing only the quantity of painkillers needed based on the expected length of pain;
•Using patients' provider agreements combined with urine drug tests for people using prescription painkillers long term;
•Talking with patients about safely using, storing, and disposing of prescription painkillers; and
•Using prescription drug monitoring programs (electronic databases that track all prescriptions for painkillers in the state) to identify patients who are improperly using prescription painkillers.


http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/752700?sssdmh=dm1.730472&src=nldne

[Scuba]

1. How many deaths from marijuana? Oh yeah, zero. n/t

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. You read my thoughts. I'm not a pot user, but I think it's time this country woke up to that

Pot is far, far less damaging than alcohol, and yet there are alcohol shops everywhere in the nation.

Also, if they permitted people to grow it in their own backyards, they wouldn't have to get marijuana from other sources.

[Zoeisright]

3. Um, this means nothing without percentages.

What PERCENTAGE of OPR users died?

And what PERCENTAGE of heroin and cocaine users died?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

5. Well, since the article provides you with the info. (CDC) to search, perhaps googling it

You might get the answers at CDC's website or calling them.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. YAY DRUG WAR!!! It's a new "crisis"!!!! More Money for the DEA!!

this is all fucking well and good until you're the bone cancer patient with crippling pain who can't get adequate palliative care because your doctor is terrified of the DEA.

Or, you end up like this guy, put in prison for nothing more than trying to manage your OWN pain:

http://reason.com/archives/2007/11/20/richard-paey-speaks/singlepage

TEH DRUG MENACE MUST BE STOPPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!


:eyes:

[Sarah Ibarruri]

6. I agree. Those who need it get almost NO pain pills, and those who don't (like Rush Limbaugh) get

plenty of them.

[redqueen]

7. K&R

[MedicalAdmin]

8. Cue: corporate apologists.

Good post.

Speaking for myself, despite having a spinal injury (thats another story involving an evil insurance company and their panel of denial), I had to give up my prescription because it cost me $85 dollars I didn't have every 3 weeks to get it refilled (for another 3 weeks) and then it went from $4 per refill to $200 per refill and I ain't got the scratch.

Pure EtOH is cheaper and works almost as well if you don't factor in that I am scragging my liver. Yah - I know that pot is cheaper, less dangerous, etc. , but it also doesn't work for me because I lack the gene that allows me to process it out of phase 2 liver detox pathways so it just makes me sick.

The next accident or illness = gun to the head for me. I won't push my family further into debt.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. Drug tests???????

If you have long term pain and are taking prescribed pain killers you have to take drug tests???
For what????
Obviously opioids would show up in the tests, and whose business is it if you are taking anything else?

People in pain are the new DEA targets?????

and in that CDC study, how many people who showed up dead were getting their drugs legally?????

[dionysus]

10. they drug test you for two reasons;

1) if you don't test positive for the pill, they can tell if you're selling them, and drop you as a patient.
2) if you test positive for say pot, they will use that as an excuse to not subscribe any more pills.

they'll take any excuse to drop you as a patient.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

18. Interesting. It's messed up. nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

14. That's not good either, but the point is that all the noise about illegal drugs being horrific...

has to be revisited. That's apparently not necessarily the case. And lots of people are addicted to prescription drugs, which are now being sold in the black market, and people (like Rush Limbaugh and McCain's wife, break the law to obtain).

[mucifer]

11. Just don't take the narcotics away from my pediatric hospice patients.

Some of these cancers cause insane amounts of pain and it's kinda crazy how much meds they need. They can be very alert on VERY high doses of narcotics. It's just that they have to be increased at the proper amount by doctors who are trained in dosing properly. If you think about hard tumors growing inside your body pressing on everything and the chemotherapy and radiation can't help anymore. It's very ugly.

I am ok with the suggestions in the article above as long as they don't include hospice some of their bullet points.

But, they really do need to legalize and tax drugs especially marijuana.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

15. Agreed. And yet it's hospices that are denied painkillers. I no longer understand anything nt

[mucifer]

19. So far here in Illinois I have no problems getting the narcotics

the kids need to their home within of when it's ordered.

[Tsiyu]

12. And this is why I am outraged

at cannabis' still being illegal.

How many of these deaths would have been prevented had these folks been vaporizing cannabis instead of choking down handfuls of these "legal" Big Pharma products? If they need pain relief, medical protocol should have them using the most benign substance first.

Not in America. In Pain? Depressed? Lets get you hooked right off the bat on pills. We'll keep the benign stuff illegal so you HAVE to be on pills to get any relief. This is heartbreakingly idiotic and non-rational.

Killing off your customers seems stupid, yet this is what Big Pharma is doing just for short term profit, without having to do any community service, pay any reparations socially, publicly.

Sell a dime bag and you'll do time, pay court costs and do community service.

Sell highly addictive pills by the billions and merely make a handsome profit...but those of you with Pharma in your portfolios surely have no problem.... better returns and all.....

[Sarah Ibarruri]

16. Exactly. nt

[Major Hogwash]

13. Thank you, Rush Limbaugh. Without you, oxycontin would never have been so famous.

So famous they had to barricade the pharmacies in Florida from break-ins!!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

17. Rush Limbaugh, John McCain's wife, etc. etc. etc. nt

[dkofos]

20. And no one has died from smoking pot.