Recent research into the drug scene in New York City shows that prescription drugs are the #2 drugs of abuse and addiction. Second only to marijuana. And that’s only the people who are taking them without a prescription.

It is amazing what has happened with prescription drugs. When first developed they saved lives – and that was their purpose. Now they’ve turned into a multi-billion dollar industry – one of, if not the most profitable industry on the planet and one of the most dangerous. They’ve turned into public enemy #1.

They are ruining people’s lives. People are dying from them, going to jail because of them, having their lives and families torn apart, filling up drug rehab facilities.

Prescription drugs are not just for saving lives anymore; they are now taken for everything from pain – much of which could be addressed with drug-free therapies like chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathy, lifestyle changes, and so on – to ‘treating’ anxiety, depression, fidgeting in class and just about every other problem. All problems that used to be considered part of every day life and are now labeled as mental illness – needing treatment with drugs.

In fact, so many of our emotions and mental states are now categorized as mental illness that you’d be hard-pressed to not find yourself, your family members or friends falling into at least one of the current mental illness categories.

Pharmaceutical companies pay out billions of dollars in fines for false and illegal advertising and marketing, for injuries and deaths – but, for them, it’s all just part of doing business. They are a powerful industry. Any other industry with business practices that unethical and products or services that created that much damage would have been stopped long ago.

Despite these disasters, the industry is looking for even more customers – pushing for legislation for ‘screening’ to make sure that those with a ‘potential’ for ‘mental illness’ are drugged as a preventative measure. It has even been suggested that children be screened before they are born!

Many of the most commonly taken drugs are highly addictive.  OxyContin addiction, addiction to oxycodone, hydrocodone, Fentanyl, Vicodin, Percocet, Xanax, Valium, and others – are highly addictive. And we now have a prescription drug-addicted society. A problem far worse than street drugs ever were.

These are now the drugs that you “just say NO” to.

Has someone in your family fallen prey to prescription drugs? Are they taking prescription drugs for something other than life-saving purposes and getting addicted to them? Find a good drug rehab program to get help. You may not be able to stop the nationwide epidemic, but you can stop prescription drugs from ruining your life and the lives of your family and friends.

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A new drug has hit the streets. In fact, it’s not really new but, for some reason, it had not made it to the streets until recently. It’s called Opana, also known as Numorpha, Numorphone and oxymorphone, and is very similar to OxyContin. But it’s twice as strong, has the same potential for addiction and, in one county in Virginia, has been the cause of six overdose deaths in recent months. Another good reason to get anyone you care about into drug rehab as fast as possible – you never really know what an addict will do next, and it could be Opana.

Opana is made by Purdue Pharma, the same company that brought us OxyContin – which set off an epidemic of prescription drug addiction and drove huge numbers of people into drug rehab for OxyContin addiction. I don’t know why more people don’t know about Opana – it’s possibly because doctors are less willing to prescribe it since it’s stronger than OxyContin and gets circulated throughout the body faster.

Doctors were also less willing to prescribe OxyContin until Purdue came out with the time-release version which, according to Purdue’s marketing people, was less addictive. Of course, they lied about that, as we all now know, and for which they paid a $634 million in fines.

You can understand why docs are perhaps less willing to listen to drug reps.

But back to Opana – one guy on a forum about the drug said he switched from 80 mg OxyContin pills to 20 mg Opana pills – on the advice of his doctor – and the Opana did a much better job of controlling his pain, even at just ¼ of the dose. But the side effects were much greater.

This also explains the overdoses: OxyContin addicts – and those addicted to other painkillers like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and even methadone – who are used to taking 80 mg of OxyContin, for example, probably think they can also handle 80 mg of Opana. But the dose they take could be fatal, even though it’s less than they would have taken if it were some other similar drug.

I don’t know how much Opana costs on the street, or otherwise, but the fact that you can take 20 mg of it for the same effect as 80 mg of OxyContin would probably mean it’s cheaper in the long run – which is a very bad thing, except for those who really do have a legitimate painful situation that warrants taking drugs.

In any case, it’s something to watch out for. If you hear mention of Opana, Numorpha, Numorphone or oxymorphone, know that it’s a drug – first of all – and then realize that it’s a serious drug. Could well be more deadly than OxyContin. Anyone who is already taking drugs and could go near Opana should get into a drug addiction treatment program.

Of course, anyone taking any kind of drug should get into a drug rehab program anyway – whether they’re likely to use Opana or not. Really, you never know what’s going to happen with drugs. People die from them all the time.

Anyone with a legitimate reason to take prescription painkillers and is getting them from their doctor for an injury, surgery or other illness should be aware of the potential of Opana for addiction and side effects. And anyone who is educating their kids on what’s going on with the drug scene needs to add Opana, Numorpha, Numorphone and oxymorphone to the list.

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So many people are coming to Florida for prescription painkillers it has inspired the coining of a new phrase – “Pill Tourism.”  Why are they coming to Florida? Florida has 900 pain management clinics. The vast majority of these pain clinics dole out prescriptions with little to no examination of patients, have their own on-site dispensary so ‘patients’ don’t have to go to the drug store, don’t have a board-certified pain management doctor on staff, and are generally not even run by a practicing doctor!

People come here because the drugs are so very easy to get.

Some interesting Florida statistics regarding painkillers:

• Among the 50 top painkiller prescribers in the U.S., 49 are in Florida.

• In the first six months of 2008, the nation’s top 25 oxycodone-dispensing doctors were all located in Florida.

A just-completed three-month investigation that focused on making undercover purchases of painkillers (mostly Oxycodone) in Florida arrested 135 people, seized 17,000 pills and $3.6 million.

Are all the people getting these pills in pain? Absolutely not. But even those who are in pain generally get a lot more pills than they need. They sell the remainder to pay for their trip to Florida.

Geez. Big Pharma must be thrilled with all the ill-gotten profits. Has anyone out there ever figured out how much profit the manufacturer of Oxycodone is making on actual abuse of the drug? Whatever the number, I would bet it’s not something any company would be thrilled to give up.

Somehow, prescription drugs are going to have to get under control. In some areas, like Florida, they’re a far worse problem than illegal drugs. And that’s just for the people who aren’t really in pain and don’t need them. There’s also a serious addiction problem for those who are actually in pain.

I think a major solution might be more, and more accessible, insurance coverage of things like chiropractic, acupuncture, natural, herbal and alternative medicines, massage therapy, physical therapy, and so on – things that are known to help people with pain. That won’t get rid of the problem of people taking painkillers when they’re not in pain; but it will help people stay off painkillers in the first place (or only use them for a very short time), get people off painkillers (although they might also need drug rehab if they’re addicted), and stop people who need painkillers from turning into pushers so they can get the drugs they need.

What do you think?

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If you’re living in Florida and have a friend or family member with a prescription drug addiction or abuse problem – even if they got the pills from a doctor – it’s no surprise to us. It would be difficult to find an addiction treatment center that is not currently helping a fairly large number of people who are trying to get off them.

Florida has been called ‘the pill state’ for a few years now. Recently it was reported that Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale, has so many pain clinics popping up that it’s now being called the painkiller capital of the United States. The population is about 1.8 million and the pain clinics alone prescribed about 6.5 million painkillers in the last half of 2008.

Florida doesn’t have a prescription drug monitoring program so no one is really watching over what’s happening to these patients other than the doctors at the pain clinics and, since their specialty is managing pain – i.e. controlling the symptoms with drugs instead of offering treatment that could get rid of the underlying problem - depending on them to make sure the patient isn’t in trouble is a little like having Cinderella made a ward of her wicked stepmother.

And the residents of the county – as well as thousands of people who come from out of state to get painkillers, some even camping outside the doors of the county’s 85 pain clinics waiting for them to open – are paying for it. The coroner says deaths from prescription drug overdose have increased by 107% in the last two years and called the situation an epidemic of drug abuse. God only knows how many people are addicted – it’s hard to escape addiction with painkillers so the numbers have got to be big.

The brisk business of painkillers in Broward County is also servicing other states. The total number of oxycodone pills handed out by just 45 doctors – who the DEA says they ‘hate’ to call doctors because they’re just after the money – handed out 9 million oxycodone pills (they could be OxyContin, vicodin, percocet, and so on) in the last six months of 2008.

If you have a friend or family member who is in pain, do yourself and them a favor and find an alternative treatment. Prescription painkillers are highly addictive and getting them off the pills once they’ve started is tough. If they’re already using them, find an addiction treatment center that can help them. And remember one thing – if they say they can’t stop because they’re still in pain it’s possible that the painkillers themselves are causing it. Extended use of painkillers can do that.

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Wow. Here’s a story about Samantha – a 22 year old girl who’s been addicted to OxyContin for two years. And it all started when a co-worker offered her a quick fix for her headache. Soon she was paying between $40 and $80 per pill, to the same co-worker. She then began embezzling from her workplace, Costco, to be able to afford the pills. The co-worker had a prescription for them for an old injury that no longer hurt. But she lied to her doctor and kept getting the pills, and sold them to Samantha.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t look like the co-worker is being prosecuted – which I find absolutely unbelievable. She broke the law, and really endangered someone’s life in the process. And now she might be going to jail.

We can assume that Samantha is now getting help through an addiction treatment center, but this shows you just how easy it is to get hooked. Perfectly innocent circumstances on the part of the addict – she just wanted to get rid of her headaches – that turned into a disaster.

Do you know anyone with an OxyContin addiction or dependency? Or another prescription drug addiction? If so, do them a favor and help them get into treatment before their life is ruined, too.

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The FDA has approved another painkiller drug that also has the potential for addiction. This one’s called Tapentadol. It appears from the application for approval, submitted less than a year ago, that the testing was done on, and the drug should therefore be recommended for, patients who have had bunionectomy surgery (think ‘bunions’ – a inflammation or thickening of the fluid sac that prevents friction between tendon and bone in the big toe) or for patients with degenerative, end-stage joint disease of the hip or knee.

That’s a narrow group that suffers pretty severe pain.

However, just like OxyContin, originally approved for cancer patients with debilitating pain, there is no doubt in my mind that Tapentadol will be used for other things. And no doubt that it will join the ranks of the many painkillers that are causing problems with prescription drug addiction.

It’s unfortunate that the FDA doesn’t have the power to say ‘no thanks, we have enough painkillers, don’t need anymore, no need to apply because we won’t approve it, they cause too many problems.’

This drug may actually turn out to be even worse than OxyContin because it also contains an element used in antidepressants, anti-anxiety and for ADHD.

Which also means the potential of antidepressant side effects – on top of the opioid painkillers side effects.

Double trouble. And double the potential for landing you in prescription drug rehab. Think twice – no, make that 10 times – and really do your homework before taking this one. As usual, your doctor won’t know much more (if any) than he’s told by the drug rep who’s out to sell the product, not safeguard your best interests.

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