True to the U.S. medical model, scientists are throwing yet another drug into the mix to handle a problem that has nothing to do with a physical condition. This time it’s giving gamblers Naltrexone to help them quit gambling. While Naltrexone might not be addictive in itself, it could possible lead to taking other drugs that could cause a prescription drug addiction problem.

How could this happen? Because Naltrexone suppresses opiate receptors. In the words of the researchers considering using Naltrexone for gambling, proper functionality of opiate receptors is “a crucial step in the pathway for processing dopamine, the pleasure neurotransmitter that activates the brain’s sense of reward.” Okay, so how’s that going to make you feel? In a word – miserable.

Naltrexone also has a number of side effects including nausea, headache, dizziness, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety and sleepiness.

Add these to feeling miserable and you’ve got someone who might just decide they’re going to take some prescription drugs that make them feel better. And, as they’ve already exhibited addictive behavior, chances are they going to wind up with a prescription drug addiction problem instead of a gambling problem.

As with all addictions, it’s better to get down to the bottom of the gambling problem and address it so the person no longer feels that irresistible compulsion. If they can do that, their lives will be improved without doing something that may lead them to prescription drug addiction and the eventual need to go into a drug addiction treatment center to handle yet another addiction.

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The environmental impact from OxyContin dependency and addiction will continue to grow. When Spencer McIllwain, the star running back from Tulsa Oklahoma, was put on Oxycontin after his career-ending football injury at New Mexico State University, his family should have had full disclosure about the possible side effects of the drug from the manufacturer Purdue Pharma.

Rx List, the internet drug index, lists dose-dependency as one of the non–serious side effects of taking OxyContin and says this should be expected and managed as a part of opioid analgesia. Non-serious? Not for Spencer McIllwain. He ended up dead in a drug rehab facility where he was being treated with methadone.

When Spencer’s father told Tulsa World that he was not a bad kid, he is far more correct than he knows. Most people trust drug companies to give us the medications needed to get through illness and injuries. No one takes a pain killer and expects to have to manage their drug dependency for life.

Yet that is exactly what has happened to millions just like Spencer - more than 6 million Americans abuse prescription drugs, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. One in 10 teenagers admits to abusing painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin. Painkillers cause more overdoses than cocaine and heroin combined.

Spencer and his family probably did not know that an advisory put out by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (smhsa.gov) in 2006 states that anyone using the drug may become dependent and will need to be withdrawn by a qualified physician.

Quitting these drugs cold turkey after you have become dependent is almost impossible. Spencer’s dependency to opiates went on for years and it couldn’t be handled partially because no one knew how tough this drug is to withdraw from.

The harm to our social environment is not made up by a fine ($650,000,000), some pamphlets and some drug education. If this were an oil spill there’d probably be a fine, a fully paid-for clean up with plants and wildlife put back in their natural state and even some jail time.

Tens of billions of dollars are spent on painkillers annually; the profits are enormous and while we know the numbers that are addicted, no one seems to know how many people are dependent.

What sort of clean up should we expect from situations like this? I don’t have a definitive answer, but when lives of people like Spencer are lost and when families cannot be put back together, then far more should be done to help these people get through a drug rehab safely and rebuild their lives. Do you agree?

Image sources:

Vinny Sacco

Oxy Abuse Kills

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