Painkiller addiction soars in U.S.

[TexasTowelie]

NEW YORK — Sales of the nation's two most popular prescription painkillers have exploded in new parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis shows, worrying experts who say the push to relieve patients' suffering is spawning an addiction epidemic.

From New York's Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M., Drug Enforcement Administration figures show dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan. Some places saw sales increase sixteenfold.

Meanwhile, the distribution of hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin, Norco and Lortab, is rising in Appalachia, the original epicenter of the painkiller epidemic, as well as in the Midwest.

The increases have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other states. Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the death toll is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2012/apr/05/painkiller-addiction-soars-in-us/

[ohheckyeah]

1. Maybe if the idiots

in this country would legalize medical marijuana there wouldn't be so many pain pills floating around.

[mrmpa]

2. I've been taking........

vicodin daily for the past 2.5 years. It was prescribed for the pain from a badly repaired broken hip and spinal stenosis. There may be days where I take 3 instead of 2, but I've never run out of it before it was eligible for a refill. I see my doctor every 3 months and she prescribes as needed, I also take neurontin for the nerve pain and cyclobenzaprine for the muscle spasms.

I want to put any DEA officer in my shoes and see what they would do. It is time for the US to legalize drugs.!

[MadHound]

3. Well that's a headline that's about a quarter century behind the times.

Downers and painkillers have been a big problem for a long while. But hey, it finally hits NYC and it becomes headline news.

[applegrove]

4. I am so glad that I was a kid in the 1980s. I did drugs less than ten times. And it was safe stuff

like hash, weed or srooms. I would be so scared to have kids these days.

[Arctic Dave]

5. Are we going to start a "war on big pharma" now?

I don't think I know a single person who isn't offered painkillers from their doctor for the slightest injury.

When my wife was in a car accident that was the first thing they tried to pawn off on her, she refused all medications and opted for physical therapy only.

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. It's already going on, sort of. The DEA has raided CVS and now Walgreens...

...pharmacies in Florida. I guess that's not "Big Pharma," but it is big corporate America and part of the legal prescription drug industry.

I'm skeptical of the DEA's ability to second-guess doctors and pharmacists when it comes to writing prescriptions, and I have to wonder what the DEA push back against pain pill diversion is doing to real chronic pain patients.

Here's a link to a story about the DEA and the drug stores:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577325750218701694.html?ru=MKTW&mod=MKTW

It's just the intro to the story; you have to pay to read the whole thing--it is the WSJ, after all!

[pecwae]

15. A lot of chronic pain sufferers

I know can't get the appropriate meds, though. I'm glad PT worked for your wife and hope she doesn't have long term problems. It doesn't turn out that way for everyone.

[Ter]

6. When I saw the topic, the first thing I thought of was Staten Island

And it's right there in the story. Prescription capital of the world.

[Liquorice]

7. You have this, but at the same time there are many people

who are under-medicated, or not medicated at all, for very painful conditions because doctors are scared to prescribe pain medicine. A member of my family suffers with chronic pain and NO help at all. They prescribe stupid useless medicines that make her feel sick and don't kill the pain. It makes me furious!!

[Warren DeMontague]

14. TEH DRUGGGS!!!! TEH DRUGGS!!! THEY MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!!

And besides, these shiny fancy helicopters and trucks don't maintain themselves.

[Archae]

8. ABC News showed how there is an epidemic of pharmacy robberies lately.

Robberies and burglaries.

Addicts are getting desperate and dealers want a supply for selling.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. I'm sure.

I suspect the real "epidemic" is taxpayers asking why we spend $60 billion a year on the DEA, so it can hassle cancer grannies and Willie fucking Nelson.

[JVS]

9. We've got a lot of pain to kill!

[Tom Ripley]

11. Probably because there is a lot of pain in the U.S.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Quick! Panic! Drug war! Drug war! Justify the budgets! Drug war! Gravy train! Drug war!

You know, in Florida they threw a quadrapalegic in prison for trying to manage his own spinal pain.

You'll excuse me if I don't quake with terror at the dreadful thought that someone, somewhere, might catch an unauthorized buzz. Meanwhile we have doctors who won't prescribe adequate pain meds because they're terrified of the DEA. Yeah, so we can protect the terminally ill bone cancer patient in screaming pain from the nasty threat of addiction to TEH DRUGGGS!!!

fucking enough, already. The drug war is a sham and a waste.