I guess the day had to come sooner or later: Accidental overdoses of prescription drugs – primarily opiates like OxyContin, hydrocodone, methadone and other painkillers – were the leading cause of accidental death in 2010. And to think that prescription drug addiction treatment could have prevented those deaths.

This information comes from Dr. Ted Parran, an affiliate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Dr. Parran commented: ““It was not motor vehicle accidents,” Parran said. “Cars come with airbags, Oxycotin doesn’t.”

He also said that doctors have to get better at differentiating between people who need a prescription because have a drug problem and those who have a legitimate medical use for them.

He also said it’s important that people who do actually need them get better at hiding them so they are not readily available to kids or someone else who might want them just to get high or for experimentation.

You also need to avoid sharing your drugs with anyone. For example, if you have a friend with a bad headache, don’t just say ‘Here, take one of my OxyContin. That’ll help.” If you do, you’re setting that friend up for possible OxyContin addiction.

I know that sounds extreme – but, really, it’s true. That person could take one OxyContin, have their headache go away, go to their doctor to get their own prescription and, next thing you know, they’re hooked. It’s that easy.

In fact, it’s not only that easy, it’s one of the primary ways people get addicted to prescription drugs. They start off actually needing them because of an accident, illness, surgery, dental work, etc. and then, when the time comes to stop taking them, they can’t.
One reason for this is that the withdrawal symptoms – the things that happen to the body just when you try to stop taking the drugs, which includes pain – make you think that you still need the drug. So, you keep taking them.

In fact, the pain you experience under those circumstances doesn’t have anything to do with the reason you needed the drug in the first place – it’s because that’s what happens when you try to stop taking them.

Also, the more you take the more you need to get the original effect. So, while 1 pill may have reduced your symptoms for a while, it might take 2 pills later on. That’s one of the reasons for overdoses.

It’s amazing that prescription drugs have become this country’s number one villain. Who would have thought?

And how many parents would have thought that when they take a prescription drug to feel better their kids get the message that these drugs make you feel better so they want to try them, too?

How many parents have lost their kids to these drugs? I don’t know, but if you check the news you see stories like that all the time.

Drugs aren’t fun. Drugs aren’t for experimentation. Drugs should be used to only to help with real, life-threatening situations. After all, the drugs themselves threaten your life. Why use them for something that isn’t also life threatening?

Parents really have to educate themselves on this subject, and they have to get back to thinking of drugs as the last option. And teach their kids the same thing.

That’s the only way to really protect yourself and your family. Heaven knows, you can’t depend on anyone else to do that. And if you or someone you care about has a problem, get into a drug rehab asap.

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Have you or has someone in your family been to alcohol or drug rehab more than once? One of the major reasons for relapse is that many drug rehab programs just aren’t long enough. It’s not enough to simply get the person off drugs, or off alcohol. And that’s what short-term drug rehab programs do – that’s all they have time to do. Long-term residential drug rehab is a totally different story.

Basically, all short-term programs do is get someone through withdrawal. Going through withdrawal can be very painful or uncomfortable physically and emotionally. That’s a major reason why people don’t quit on their own – it’s hard to face that without professional help.

Once they do get through withdrawal, the addict or alcoholic thinks that was basically all they had to do. That they’ll be able to stop now. And it was a big accomplishment.

But they get back into their environment and whatever the problems were that led to them drinking or taking drugs in the first place, and they find those same problems are still there. And they’ve done nothing to resolve them.

A good, long-term drug rehab program does address and resolve those problems. It gets the person off the drugs or alcohol, just like any alcohol or drug rehab program does, but then it addresses the reasons why the person is drinking or taking drugs in the first place and helps them resolve the problems.

A recent news item by a drug rehab specialist said that when someone fails to get off drugs or alcohol permanently after their rehab program, many people consider that the problem is with the alcoholic or drug addict. That they just didn’t have the ‘character’ to stay clean.

This is not necessarily true. Getting a person off drugs or alcohol without actually addressing the reasons they take them or helping them find solutions to their problems is like giving a kid a bunch of books without ever teaching them to read and then blaming their lack of  education on their lack of  ‘character’.

Unfortunately, when someone does relapse after an alcohol or drug program, the tendency is to send them back to the same program. In other words, they do the same thing over again and expect different results. Einstein called that the definition of ‘insanity.’

Going through a program like that over and over again and going back to drinking or taking drugs also makes the person feel insane, or of bad character, or that they can’t be helped, and so on.

This makes things even worse. The person eventually gets to the point where they just don’t want to try again. They accept that it just ‘doesn’t work,’ that they just can’t do it.

What is the solution? Frankly, don’t even bother with those short-term programs unless you have absolutely no other options. Instead, get help through a long-term residential drug rehab program – give the person a fighting chance in the first place. You’re much more likely to get the results you’re looking for.

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Not too long ago I wrote a blog about more people being in drug rehab for marijuana than any other drug. Someone left a comment on the blog calling me an idiot, saying that those people were sent to drug rehab by the court system and that there really isn’t anything wrong with marijuana. In fact, there is plenty wrong with marijuana, and here’s another one: a new study shows that someone who’s been smoking marijuana is twice as likely to get into a car crash.

The study looked at the results of nine prior studies regarding the relationship between marijuana and motor vehicle accidents. All but one study showed that the risk of having a motor vehicle accident while smoking marijuana – i.e. within 3 to 4 hours – was increased by nearly three times. And the more marijuana was smoked – both how much was smoked and how often – the greater the risk.

The authors assume that the reason for this increase is because marijuana decreased reaction time and coordination.

So, why should you get your family members into a drug rehab program if they’re smoking marijuana?

• We now know that there’s a much greater chance of them having a car accident.
• There is evidence that it causes brain damage.
• It causes disassociation – marijuana smokers are less connected to reality and the people around them.
• Someone could unknowingly buy marijuana that is laced with other drugs.
• We also know that the THC content (THC is the substance in marijuana that makes you high) is normally between 7.5 percent and 24 percent – whereas it used to be about 5 percent. This cause more physical and mental impairment, and more impaired judgment.
• Impaired judgment could increase the chances of the person taking other types of drugs.

True, you don’t see some of the most obviously distasteful sights associated with other drugs – not too many people are hunkering down in filthy alley smoking marijuana. Maybe that’s why some people don’t think marijuana is a problem.

But the facts above are very good reasons to not smoke marijuana, and to get help for those who do.

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Americans have decided, through their votes, that anyone should be able to decide to drink alcohol, as long as they’re of a certain age and aren’t driving. With the possibility of legalization of drugs, we are essentially saying that they also have the right to decide whether or not to take drugs. Obviously, people do have the right to do either – and they can handle at least some of the effects it creates on them personally through alcohol and drug rehab. But do they also have the right to inflict pain and suffering on others?

In addition to making sure your kids understand what drugs can do to them, it’s also important to make them aware of how drinking and taking drugs affects others.

For example, you could make your kids aware of the following:

• The tax collected by the government on alcohol sales is about $18 billion per year, but the cost of healthcare, lost productivity and justice system expenses add up to about $180 billion – 10 times as much. Let your kids know that that other $162 billion comes directly from your pocket, and will come directly from his or her pocket once they’re also paying taxes.
• Partially as a result of people getting sick due to drugs and alcohol, healthcare costs are so high that millions of people in America can’t afford to go to a doctor or to buy health insurance. It’s hard to pay for these things even for someone who makes a better than average income. But for many people, it comes down to eating and paying rent OR paying for the doctor or having health insurance. Give them examples of how much you have to pay. And how much they’ll have to pay as they get older.
• The same is true for auto insurance. If there weren’t so many people on the road drinking and driving, or driving while on drugs, it wouldn’t be necessary to charge so much for auto insurance. That also effects you, the parents, and will effect them as they get older.
• Tens of thousands of people in almost every state go into drug rehab and alcohol rehab every year. Most of these services are ‘free’ to the people getting helped, but are paid for by the taxpayer, which will one day include your son or daughter.  And the people who get help never have to repay anything for the services they receive, so no one who footed the bill for them will ever get any of that money back.  Helping is great, but those people did make the decision to drink or take drugs, and to drink too much, or to drive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and they may even have damaged cars, other property, their passengers, the people in the other cars – someone may even have died or been crippled for life. It might be appropriate that, once the alcoholic or drug addict is doing better, they repay for the damage they caused and the help they got.

The point is – individuals may have the right to do whatever they want regarding drugs and alcohol, but they do not have the right to infringe on and damage the lives of others. They will agree, I’m sure, that they also don’t want to harm others. But, if you’re drinking too much (by which I mean more than the occasional social drink) or taking drugs, there’s really no way you can avoid negatively effecting someone else – even if it’s just your parents worrying about you.

If kids understand this, it will go a long way to helping them say no to drugs and alcohol, and it could make them a better, more socially responsible person in the process.

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A study was recently evaluated regarding drug deaths across the country. As of 2009, they surpassed deaths from traffic accidents. In 2009, 37,485 people lost their lives to drugs – one every 14 minutes. Prescription drugs are blamed for the rising death toll – and not necessarily just from people who abuse them. Prescription drug addiction and dependency is also a big problem with people who you would never suspect would even take ‘drugs.’ They got them from their doctor.

The drugs causing the most deaths are painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. Fentanyl, which is similar to morphine – although 100 times more powerful than morphine – is also becoming more widely used. It’s a painkiller, available in patches, but also marketed as lollipops.

The report also said that these drugs cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

According to a report in the LA Times, deaths from traffic accidents, unlike drug-related deaths, have been dropping for decades. Why? Because there have been huge investments in auto safety.

Obviously, the same cannot be said for prescription drugs.

When it comes to auto safety, the manufacturers are held responsible. It doesn’t take very many deaths, or even accidents, for the cars to be recalled. Notices are sent out, it’s written about in the newspapers, dealers issue recalls to those who have purchased the ‘dangerous’ cars, and so on.

No one says “Only 10 people died from accidents caused by or worsed by these cars; think of the hundreds of thousands of people who got where they were going without mishap. The benefits outweigh the risks.”

But that’s exactly what happens with prescription drugs. Thousands of people – not just 10 – die from some of these painkillers and it’s justified by the fact that hundreds of thousands of people took them and got rid of their pain. So, the benefits outweigh the risks.”

The worst that happens to the drug manufacturers is that they are told to put a warning on the drug containers and in their advertising. You hear the warnings, some of them, on television ads and you see them in magazines. Drug ads usually take up two pages – one for a picture of a happy person who is taking the drugs and the other, in very, very fine print, for all the side effects, warning, contra-indications and so on.

They’re not taken off the market. Even when Purdue Pharma had to pay out $634 million in fines because of fraudulently marketing OxyContin – which resulted in thousands of cases of people needing OxyContin rehab and who knows how many deaths – they were still allowed to make and sell the product.

And no one went to jail – no one was really held responsible for the damage caused to the individuals who took the drugs. The only people who saw any real money out of it were government agencies that paid for people on Medicare to receive them.

And the company didn’t even need to do anything to make the product safe. And they couldn’t have anyway – because the drugs aren’t safe. Period. There’s no way to change that.

If you or someone in your family is suffering from prescription drug addiction, abuse or dependency, there is something you can do about it:

First, realize that these drugs are not safe. That’s why one person is dying every 14 minutes. Don’t be fooled by the fact that they’re still on the market. It’s not because they’re safe, it’s because the pharmaceutical companies pull more weight than the government.

Second, get them into a drug rehab program that has specific experience with prescription drug rehab.

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