Rx Addiction Is the Government’s New Focus

Drug addiction is changing in the new millennium. Needles have been traded in for prescription bottles by many abusers, with more than 5 million Americans misusing prescription painkillers in a one-month period in 2009, according to a National Survey on Drug Use and Health. More than 70 percent of those who admitted to abusing prescription drugs said they got the drugs from friends and relatives.

"We believe there are two unique reasons for the growth in prescription drug abuse - easy accessibility to the drugs and the diminished perception of risk," Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee recently.

Kerlikowske was just one of many witnesses called to describe the skyrocketing addiction statistics and a host of federal and state initiatives designed to curb the problem.

The Plan to End Prescription Drug Abuse

The White House recently released details of a plan to confront prescription drug abuse that emphasizes spreading public awareness of the problem by mandatory education of physicians who prescribe painkillers and also for people who receive the prescriptions.

Many prescription drugs remain in medication cabinets long after they’re needed, so government officials are crafting regulations to carry out a law Congress passed last year that will allow states to enable pharmacies to accept people's unused prescription drugs for disposal. The DEA has also organized two national prescription drug take-back days to collect unused or expired medications. On the most recent take-back day, Americans turned in 188 tons of unused or expired drugs at sites across the country for disposal.

"Daily, 50 people in our nation die from unintentional prescription opioid overdoses and, daily, 20 times that number are admitted to hospital emergency departments for opioid overdoses," said John Eadie, director of the Prescription Monitoring Program Center of Excellence at Brandeis University.

Prescription Drug Treatment

With stats like that, these measures are just the beginning of dealing with this ever-growing problem. If you or someone you love is battling an addiction to prescription medications, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.