Health Care Costs Spike: Prescription Drug Abuse

The marketing efforts of pharmaceutical companies, with a new pill or drug as the new answer to every life problem, has become one of the most expensive and devastating health care issue ever to face the country.

“While many drugs are needed to help people with health issues,” comments Mary Rieser, Executive Director for the Atlanta Recovery Center, “many drugs are simply re-packaged, re-named, and released to ‘address’ some other health issue. This marketing practice, while making billions for the drug companies, has severely impacted the health and well being of millions who are not educated on the dangers of abusing prescription drugs.”

An estimated 5.2 million people admit to using prescription medication for purposes other than prescribed during the previous month, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.  The largest part of that number used painkillers for reasons other than to kill pain.

For example, narcotic painkillers are derived from opium.  They can be made directly from the plant such as in the case of morphine or codeine, or they can be synthetically created in a lab, as with oxycodone or hydrocodone. They are all considered highly addictive no matter the fancy name or marketing gimmick behind them.  

The reality that prescription drug abuse is a health care issue, not simply part of the larger drug addiction issue, has gradually gained acceptance among law makers and other leaders and some actions are being taken. The FDA has finally begun approving pain killers, which carry a high risk of addiction, with a required risk prevention program, including educating the doctors who prescribe them.

An example of tightened restrictions is of a recently approved drug Onsolis.  Onsolis contains fentanyl, a very powerful synthetic opiate. The FDA has required that this newcomer only be prescribed and dispensed by physicians and pharmacists who have been specially trained to deal with the possibility of abuse.

Under the new FOCUS program, only those prescribers, patients and pharmacies registered with the program will be able to prescribe, dispense, and receive Onsolis. The FOCUS program will provide training and educational materials to prescribers and pharmacy personnel, and a counseling call will be placed to patients prior to dispensing to ensure they have been adequately educated about the appropriate use of the drug. Prescription orders will be filled only by participating pharmacies that send the product directly to the patients’ homes.

This is a new level of responsibility for the medical profession and the FDA, who hopefully learned something from the Oxycontin debacle.  Oxycontin is a similar drug and when it was released no such program was in place and in fact the manufacturer sold it as a safe alternative.   When Oxycontin was released the maker claimed it was a safe alternative to other pain killers on the market. This turned out not to be the case and thousands of deaths were linked to the prescription of the drug and many more suffering from drug addiction.

The public has the right to be in the know and to be protected by the agencies who are producing and approving these drugs.