A recent news item says that the heroin industry in Mexico is coming into high gear and, consequently, the Midwest and Atlantic states are going to turn into heroin hubs. Until now, that role has been played primarily by California and Texas. What does that mean for us – the general public? There will be a lot more heroin around, and a lot of people are going to be doing into drug rehab to help get off the drug. This is especially true for kids who experiment with drugs, and for people fighting prescription drug addiction.

The cost of heroin is already relatively low – $5 a hit, maybe as much as $10 – which is how students and young adults can afford it. For people with a prescription drug problem, like OxyContin addiction, heroin is also a cheap and readily available substitute. One OxyContin pill could cost as much as $80 on the street.

Prescription drug addiction has become a major problem in the U.S. Even the President’s talking about it. With prescription drug monitoring becoming more prevalent – which makes it harder for someone to go from one doctor to another faking symptoms to get OxyContin they can sell to others – and laws on pill mills getting tighter, more heroin will be welcome.

The article also said that the Mexican heroin dealers are changing the face of the typical heroin user. “Using savvy marketing tactics, they’ve also repositioned heroin commercially, revamping its image from the inner-city drug of yore, with its junkies and needles, into a narcotic that can be snorted or smoked, appealing to suburban and even rural high school youth.”
Pretty disgusting. Parents, especially, should make sure their kids are educated on drugs so they are not tempted. Also, anyone who has a friend or family member who tends to experiment with street drugs or pills and might be tempted to try something a little cheaper should put extra effort into getting them into a drug rehab program asap.

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Do you have any unused prescription drugs hanging out in your medicine cabinet or around your house? A lot of people do, but don’t really even think about them. You just stop taking them and sort of forget about them. Well, it’s something that you should think about and they should really be disposed of.

With prescription drug overdose being the second leading cause of death in the US, we should all think about the dangers of leaving them around the house for anyone to find and take, especially teenagers. Let’s face it, there’s no need to make them easily accessible for recreational use.

But, how do you get rid of the unwanted pills, patches or liquids? Do you throw them in the trash? Do you flush them down the toilet? Toss them out your car window on a deserted highway? Just kidding about that one!

The best way to properly dispose of your unused prescriptions is to take them to your prescription give back type of program. Kind of like bringing your paint and chemicals to the chemical collection programs that are offered through solid waste facilities. Just call your city or county government’s household recycling and trash service to see if there’s a program in your community.

If you don’t have a program like that in your area, the bottle label or patient instructions will generally indicate how to dispose of the medication that you need to get rid of. Sometimes it will say to just throw them in your trash and others will say to flush.

If there is no indication of how to get rid of your medication, take the unused substance out of its original bottle and mix them with undesirable substances like used kitty litter or coffee grounds. This makes it much less appealing to children and can make it almost impossible for someone to find who might go through the trash. It’s important NOT to flush any prescription drugs down the toilet unless they specifically indicate that you should do that.

Also, if you’re throwing out old medicine bottles that have a label with your personal information, scratch out the identifying specifics. This helps to protect your identity and personal information.

And, for all of you green lovers out there, this is all especially important to follow to help keep our water uncontaminated. So, let’s keep our planet safer and cleaner and most importantly, keep our unused prescription drugs out of the hands of people who might abuse them.

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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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In last night’s press conference, Obama talked quite a bit about health care. I wonder if he knew Oklahoma’s funding was cut for their prescription drug monitoring program? I also wonder if he knows about the nation-wide problem with prescription drug addiction or the number of people dying from prescription drug overdoses. I doubt he’s had the chance to dig that deeply into things yet – having only been in office for 63 days with some pretty serious problems to address.

Obama wants higher quality health care at a lower cost. Cutting prescription drug monitoring funding is a move in the wrong direction. Not only does the monitoring stop people from doctor shopping – which allows them to get the drugs they need to feed their own habit AND fuels the illegal trade in prescription drugs that is driving people into an addiction treatment center to address their addiction – it can also prevent people from getting the wrong medication and being prescribed drugs that are harmful when taken with other drugs they’ve also been prescribed.

Florida is a perfect example of what lack of a prescription drug monitoring program can do. It’s overdose deaths have surpassed other high cause-of-death categories combined – and we’re talking about overdosing on prescription drugs, not street drugs.

You can make sure Obama’s aware of this problem. Millions of families across the country have been damaged by prescription drug addiction, and prescription drug errors. Many have lost their loved ones because of this problem. Go to whitehouse.gov and write to him – let him know there’s a problem. He’ll be interested in solving it – it directly aligns with solving our health care problems. 

look at Florida – the nation’s pill state – no monitoring plan – anyone can get anything and the overdose deaths are skyrocketing, prescription drugs are killing more people than other high cause of death categories combined), and helps prevent people from getting the wrong medication or being prescribed drugs that will hurt them if they take them with the other drugs they’ve also been prescribed.

A waste of money, and lives. 

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Washington state is having trouble with prescription drug addiction and abuse, but has not yet implemented the approved prescription drug monitoring plan that would allow doctors, pharmacists, law enforcement and other officials to see if people are ‘doctor shopping’ – going from one doctor to another faking symptoms to get drugs, which are then often sold to others. The reason? They don’t have the $680,000 it will cost to get it rolling.

My suggestion? Do an assessment of how many prisoners are incarcerated for non-violent drug-related crime, get them out of jail and into an addiction treatment center where they can get help, and use the money they saved to put the database in place.

It’s far less expensive to get someone through rehab than keep them in jail – not to mention the fact that they’ll be helped to get off drugs, which is often the reason they committed the crime in the first place, turn them back into contributing members of society, cut down on the overall drug use in the state, and lower the crime rate in general.

Why aren’t more states doing this?

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