News / Education
Drug Rehab Urges Drug Database: Fight Prescription Drug Addiction
Drug Database Created after Michael Jackson Death
Initially this drug helps with whatever it was prescribed for: anxiety, pain, restlessness.
However, as time passes, the same drug dosage ceases to have the same alleviating effect. Soon, the patient finds themselves taking more and more of the prescription drug to get the same feeling. The doctor, worried that this is becoming an addiction, tries to tell the patient that they need to stop taking so much. By now, it is too late:
The patient is a drug addict.
As in the well known cases of Michael Jackson or Anna Nicole Smith, the patient promptly goes to another doctor and gets another prescription. Soon they are visiting, in some cases, dozens of doctors to get their fix.
“Many states have electronic databases so doctors can keep their eyes on patients' drug records -making it easier for the docs to determine if someone really needs drugs, or if they're simply desperate for a fix,” comments Mary Rieser, Executive Director for Narconon Drug Rehab. “California just instituted this database, using Michael Jackson and Anna Nichole Smith’s deaths as reasons why.
“Even though we have lobbied this effort in Georgia, we still don’t have this system in place here. “
In California, the database -- called the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (or CURES) -- will be available to doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement officials.
“We will continue to push our legislators that this system needs to be in place in Georgia,” states Ms. Rieser. “Too many lives are being ruined and lost because of un-witting prescription drug addiction.”
