I recently found out that doctors get about four hours of education on drugs during their entire education. If you’re wondering why we have such a big problem with prescription drug addiction and abuse, that might be a big part of it.

The doctors, not having the time to do the research themselves - especially since drug cmpanies go out of their way to hide information that makes the drugs look bad either because they’re ineffective, can cause prescription drug addiction or are candidates for abuse - largely rely on drug company info - which often amounts to little more than propaganda.

This is one big thing that’s going to have to change if we want to get rid of our current drug culture. Right now, to avoid problems with prescription drugs, patients are obliged to do their own research - thoroughly. That’s really the only way you can come close to guaranteeing your own safety.

The doctors don’t know, the drug companies lie, and the FDA doesn’t even insist they have all the research. Buyer beware. If you’re already taking prescription drugs and think you might be in trouble - or it might be someone you care about - get help in a drug addiction treatment center.

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Is the threat of prescription drug addiction and abuse - and possibly medical license suspension - keeping doctors from prescribing narcotic painkillers? Apparently so. In fact, a recent article described this dilemma as “perhaps the hottest national debate in medicine today.” And when you look at the number of people showing up in drug addiction treatment centers for prescription drug addiction - not to mention the numbers showing up in hospital ERs and morgues - that’s as it should be.

There’s a lot of information in this article - Treatment for Pain Divides Physicians - and anyone who’s taking OxyContin, Vicodin or other prescription painkillers, or who is in chronic pain and considering doing so, should read it.

One of the doctors, Dr. William Witt, a pain management specialist, doesn’t prescribe narcotics for anything other than post-surgical or similar conditions. According to him, there’s no evidence that these drugs improve function or even continue to give pain relief after six months. He also brought up the recent evidence that narcotic painkillers actually cause pain after taking them for a certain period of time. So, your original pain could well be gone and now you’re taking the painkillers to relieve the pain the painkillers are causing. And, by that time, you can be pretty sure you also have a problem with prescription drug addiction and need a drug addiction treatment center to help you get off them.

Crazy situation. And worthy of hot debate.

The thing is, Dr. Witt is a pain management specialist. And he’s apparently good at it. He’s getting people out of pain - serious, chronic pain - every day, without the use of narcotic drugs and without risking prescription drug addiction or the need for treatment in a drug addiction treatment center.

So, why even debate the issue? If you have the option to treat someone without the risk of prescription drug addiction and other side effects, if you have the option to treat the cause of the pain so it is not just being masked with drugs, if you have the option to treat in a way that won’t eventually cause even more pain - what’s there to debate about?

Part of this is the fault of our health care system. I know people on medicare or other health plans that don’t cover alternative therapies. Does your coverage include chiropractic, physical therapy, acupuncture, herbs and other natural therapies or supplements? Probably not. And it’s likely that same for a lot of people. Especially when what’s needed is long-term treatment rather than just a few sessions. And a lot of people, probably most, just can’t afford to pay for it out of pocket.

So, here we are with all these highly trained doctors and other health professionals who aren’t being fully utilized or accepted within our health care system, with about 60 million people in the U.S. in pain every single day, doctors paying a fortune for malpractice insurance, patients in drug addiction treatment centers, hospitals, ERs and morgues because of prescription drug addiction and abuse, alternative health practitioners practically being lined up and shot by the medical establishment, and it’s all costing the U.S. $100 billion a year in medical costs and lost productivity.

Who’s coming out ahead? In the end, probably just one industry. The guys who make and sell the drugs.

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Florida has a serious prescription drug addiction problem. It is also one of only 15 states holding out on implementing the pharmacist and physician prescription drug database that would enable both to identify those with a drug problem to get the drug addiction treatment they need. The concern is privacy.

While I couldn’t agree more privacy is worth protecting, sometimes it just might be over-rated when it comes to taking responsibility for our fellow human beings, and for ourselves.

Prescription drug addiction is a dangerous epidemic - it’s not like having a favorite TV show that you just have to watch every Tuesday night. It ruins people’s lives, it kills them, it spreads like wildfire, people on drugs steal, lie, cheat, are dangerous to others and to themselves - really, they belong in a prescription drug addiction treatment center, not in a pharmacy getting another prescription.

Do we have the right to protect people from themselves by invading their privacy? It’s a question that is in constant debate. Perhaps the answer depends on the situation and the real intention behind it. Would you, for example, see your son or daughter, husband addicted, their lives ruined, or dead rather than invade their privacy? I wouldn’t think so.

Getting someone into a drug addiction treatment center when they need help is sometimes uncomfortable - chances are they’re not going to agree to do it without you being a little pushier or invading a little more of their privacy than is comfortable for you. Or them. But … consider the alternative. And then find a drug rehab. Florida has plenty. Call us to find out which is best for your situation.

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The new party school ratings from the Princeton Review are in and the number one position has been taken over by the University of Florida, in Gainsville - which means a lot of college students will need alcohol and drug rehab. Florida State, in Tallahassee, has moved to number 10.

Prior to gaining this number one party school position, an estimated 10,000 of the University of Florida’s 51,000 students may have needed alcohol or drug rehab. There’s a good chance that being the number one party school in the U.S. will bump this up even more. 

With prescription drug addiction and abuse being a problem with about 15,000 students as well, it looks like roughly half the kids at U of F may be either taking drugs or drinking - both to excess.

Parents should be on the lookout for drugs and drinking and do something about it. With about $50,000 being spent on most State college educations, you want to make sure that, if needed, your kid gets alcohol and drug rehab. Florida has several alcohol and drug addiction treatment centers to choose from. If you need help, call Drug Rehab Referral - they can help you find one that’s good for your situation in or around Gainsville.

Of the 51,000 students in the University of Florida

With prescription drug addiction and abuse also being so prevalent in Florida, it’s

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After a death related to prescription drug addiction and abuse - a 24-year-old man had obtained prescription drugs from 17 different online pharmacies - Minneapolis authorities cracked down on drugs available on the Internet. One of the pharmacies is under investigation and two pharmacists have been disciplined and fined, thanks to new state laws. Florida could really use something like that. Prescription drug addiction is rampant in Florida, it’s nicknamed ‘the pill state’, and Tampa is considered ground zero for Internet pharmacies.

In another Minnesota case a pharmacy was fined $25,000 for filling 4,500 Internet prescriptions over a period of less than three months. Give me a break!!! How many people went to the ER, got sick, died, or developed a prescription drug addiction because of his prescriptions? $25,000 is peanuts compared to the harm that pharmacist did. Shouldn’t he be in jail?

What is the deal with fining people like that. If they were drug dealers on the street and had sold 4,500 people drugs, they’d be in jail. No question about it. But the same does not apply with prescription drugs.

But, at least it’s something. I think things will get tougher on these guys in the near future. Not even the judge in the Purdue case was happy about the guys not going to jail.

Each of the recipients of those 4,500 prescriptions could be contacted. Find out what condition they’re in and, if they have developed a prescription drug addiction, the pharmacist could pay for drug rehab. Florida could certainly make some headway if there was a law like that! 

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Check out Reuters’ interview with Stephen Pasierb, president and chief executive of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America for his take on the prescription drug addiction and abuse epidemic.

He reviews the various sectors of the public taking prescription drugs: those who take them because they’ve tried them before and know they work (his example was college students taking Ritalin and Adderall because they’ve gotten better grades with them in the past), those who are self-medicating - i.e. taking painkillers because they’re in pain, and those who just want to get high.

All groups are abusing the drugs, and all are at risk for prescription drug addiction.

He also reiterates that because these drugs were manufactured under sterile conditions, because you know what’s in them, because they’re approved by the FDA, and because they are prescribed by doctors, they’re safe. However, as Mr. Paserieb points out, doctors get about four hours of training on the subject of addiction during their education, and yet are licensed to prescribe dangerous, highly-addictive drugs.

Mr. Pasierb refers to prescription drugs as the new ‘gateway’ drugs (it used to be marijuana.) People who would never have taken illegal drugs become willing to do so because they tried prescription drugs and didn’t have a problem.

What are the solutions to prescription drug addiction and abuse? Mr. Pasierb has some suggestions. But they involve changes in systems that don’t change quickly. In the meantime, the prescription drug addiction epidemic rages on and individuals have to take matters into their own hands.

People need to be educated - although there’s plenty in the online press about this subject, it’s not enough. And most people don’t read it. Most people don’t read much of anything. It’s going to take some grass roots action - and that starts in your own home, with your own family, and with your friends and co-workers. If someone you know is having a problem with prescription drug addiction or abuse, get them into a drug addiction treatment center for help.

Frankly, it’s going to take a lot to get some of these people into any kind of drug addiction treatment center - as most of them really don’t think using prescription drugs is a problem. But, they do. And those who understand that are responsible for doing something about it.

 addiction and abuse the new sees prescription drug addictHis research shows that college kids who take Ritalin or Adderall, for example, are taking it because they’ve tried it before and they get better grades with it.

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Okay. We’ve finally got some numbers here. Over 7 million people in the U.S. abused prescription drugs in 2007. More than cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy, and inhalants (which includes, for some reason, marijuana) combined. That figure was less than 4 million in the year 2000. That’s prescription drug addiction on the ‘illegal’ end of things. But those numbers don’t even come close to the ‘legal’ numbers.

From 1995 to 2005, the number of people treated for abuse of prescription painkillers increased by 321 percent. And every year 180 million legal prescriptions are written for painkillers every year. That’s amazing. If only one prescription went to each person, about 1/2 the population of the U.S. would be taking what is basically heroin.

Let me see. A 40 mg OxyContin pill costs just under $6 for a legitimate prescription. If each of the prescriptions written was a two week’s supply - let’s say 42 pills - the drug manufacturer would make about $45 billion. 

If that’s not a vested interest in prescription drug addiction, I don’t know what is. With that kind of incentive, you can be sure the drugs are designed to make you want to keep taking them.

How does it happen. Read U.S. grapples with rising prescription drug addiction. Then refuse to take the drugs or give them to your kids unless it’s a life-threatening situation. And if it’s already too late for that, get anyone you know who’s taking them into a drug addiction treatment center.

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A methadone clinic opened up about two years ago in Indiana. The goal was to provide a closer location for those on methadone treatment - which is supposed to help heroin addicts through withdrawal so they can then get through drug rehab at a drug addiction treatment center so they’ll be drug free. 

I get tons of responses from readers of this blog whenever I write about methadone treatment. They tell me how it’s saved their lives and that it was a last resort.

According to a recent news article, the clinic in Indiana is using it as anything but a last resort. The requirements for getting methadone from this clinic are that the person has been addicted to an opiate for at least one year.  And many of the people they’re servicing are addicted to prescription drugs - it’s opiates, so it would be OxyContin or a similar painkiller - that they were given by their doctor and then couldn’t quit.

Wow. So much for methadone treatment being used as a last resort.

“They don’t want to lose their job or lose their kids,” said the program director. “They come to us because they want to be safe, and they want to be legal.”

So, now, instead of long-time heroin addicts being addicted to methadone, we have people addicted to methadone because they couldn’t quit taking OxyContin or some similar drug because of surgery or an illness.

The program director says they’re supposed to get daily methadone for a while but are supposed to start weaning off it within three to six months. He said it works for some, and not for others. Of course. That’s because they’re getting methadone instead of going to a drug addiction treatment center that can help them with their addiction.

Prescription drug addiction - especially OxyContin addiction or addiction to another painkiller - is like heroin addiction. Just like we’ve been saying. And, like heroin addiction, the solution is drug rehab. Not methadone.
 

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Okay, so just about everyone is probably sick of hearing about Amy Winehouse - she’s very far removed from the life most of us lead. However, according to a recent news article, Amy is going through some changes - she’s apparently going to volunteer in drug addiction treatment centers and other venues to help people get off drugs.

Some may think that’s a strange idea - especially since we haven’t really seen any news that she’s straightened out. But if that is what she’s planning on doing, it’s probably the most therapeutic move she could make. Helping others overcome problems similar to your own has a tendency to make you also see things more clearly. People completing drug rehab programs often get involved in that kind of work. In fact, drug addiction treatment centers are often staffed with people who have been helped themselves. They want to give back, as does Amy.

This will also be a great influence on those of her admirers who may well have started taking drugs and drinking so they could be like Amy  - their role model. I’m sure there are parents all over the world who hate Amy Winehouse for whatever they think her part may have been their kids’ behavior.

So, Amy, do give back. By all means. Your actions have probably caused a lot of misery you know nothing about. Helping drug addiction treatment centers and other groups and institutions that get people off drugs and alcohol will restore good will. If you know someone with an alcohol or drug problem - even prescription drug addiction - get them into a drug addiction treatment center. It really does work.

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This week’s Prescription Drug Addiction Radio Show (on WGUL 860 AM on Sunday night, July 20 - 9:05 p.m. Eastern, live online at www.860wgul.com) will feature pharmacists talking about the problem of - guess what - prescription drug addiction. Here’s what Larry G, the show’s host, has to say about the problem:

“The drug companies call them pain pills and the drug addicts call them Oxys, Roxies and Blueberries. The doctors call them alprazolam and on the street they are called Ladders, Bars and Totem Poles, but horribly it is now estimated that deaths that include prescription drugs are surpassing deaths from guns in the United States.”

Drug rehab in Florida has especially got it’s hands full - Florida medical examiners reported 8,620 drug-related deaths in Florida in 2007, and about 69% of them involved prescription drugs. The drugs that were involved in the majority of deaths were methadone, benzodiazepines, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine.

The saddest thing is that, unlike people who take street drugs, many of the people who overdose on and die from prescription drugs though the drugs were safe, and never saw it coming.

Larry G, a pharmacist for 30 years, is doing our society a great service with this radio show. Tune in, find out more about prescription drug addiction, and get anyone you think might need help into a drug addiction treatment center asap.  Also, check out Drug Rehab Referral for additional info on prescription drug addiction, street drugs, and drug addiction treatment.

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