2500 2,426 2000 1500 1,238 1000 937 793 500 0 Marijuana
Pain Killers
Tranquilizers Ecstacy Inhalants Cocaine Stimulants LSD 637 624 377 252 140 Sedatives Heroin
Past Year Initiates of Specific Illicit Drugs Among Persons Aged 12 or Older (2010) US Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA center for Behavior Health Statistics and Quality
45 PCP 2,004
Enough prescription painkillers were pre- scribed in 2010 to medicate every American adult around-the-clock for one month. Prominent on the list of pain relievers
Enough prescription painkillers were prescribed in 2010 to medicate every American adult around-the-clock for one month.
is oxycodone and methadone, which have seen significant increases in abuse along with hydrocodone, which is the most commonly abused pharmaceutical in the United States today. Not only is opioid use increasing, doctors and rehabilita- tion therapists report that prescription painkiller abuse is one of the most difficult addictions to treat.
Overdose Related Deaths are Rising Nearly three out of four prescription
drug overdoses are caused by prescription painkillers. Te United States consumes 71 percent of the world’s oxycodone and uses 99 percent of the world’s hydroco- done. Tere is an unmistakable correlation between prescriptions filled, reports of pre- scription drug abuse, and overdose deaths from these drugs. So alarming is the increasing rate of deaths
relating to prescription drug abuse that it has been classified as an epidemic by the Center-
10 datia focus
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Te rates vary substantially across the coun- try but are most severe in the Southwest and Appalachian region. Te highest drug overdose death rates in 2008 were found in New Mexico and West Virginia, which had rates nearly five times that of Nebraska, which reported the lowest rate. In a period of nine months, a tiny Ken-
tucky county of fewer than 12,000 people sees a 53-year-old mother, her 35-year-old son, and seven others die by overdosing on pain medications obtained from pain clin- ics in Florida1
. In Utah, a 13-year-old fatally overdoses
on oxycodone pills taken from a friend’s grandmother1
. Tese are not isolated events. Overdose
death rates in the United States have more than tripled since 1990 and have never been higher. Prescription drugs are now respon- sible for more overdose deaths (45 percent) than cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and amphetamines (39 percent) combined1 Opiate overdoses, once almost always
.
the result of heroin use, are now increasing- ly due to abuse of prescription painkillers. Tese drugs are not limited to particular
winter 2013
Thousands
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