How prescription drugs dethroned heroin in Seattle
Heather Bosch, of Seattle radio station KIRO, dedicated a five-part series to explaining why “Prescription drugs - used incorrectly - are killing more people in King County than all other illegal drugs, combined.”
It’s the latest in a string of prescription drug localizations; one which distinguishes itself with an emphasis on the move from heroin to prescription pills.
In part one, Bosch explains how prescription opiates overcame their illicit cousin, heroin, to become the drug of choice in the Seattle area. In part three, she talks to a recovering opiate addict about the toll the pills took on his life and psyche. And in part four, Bosch looks into how ready access has made it easier for teens to become addicted to prescription drugs.
ER visits caused by nonmedical use of opioids double in 5 years
Filed under: Health data, Hot Health Headline, Tools
The latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the CDC focuses on the rapid increase of emergency department visits caused by the abuse and misuse of prescription painkillers. The report is based on a review of the five most recent years of data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network.
DAWN’s national estimates are based on a 220-hospital sample. According to DAWN, “nonmedical use” means “taking a higher-than-recommended dose, taking a drug prescribed for another person, drug-facilitated assault, or documented misuse or abuse, all of which must be documented in the medical record.”
The big takeaway?
… the estimated number of ED visits for nonmedical use of opioid analgesics increased 111% during 2004-2008 (from 144,600 to 305,900 visits) and increased 29% during 2007–2008. The highest numbers of ED visits were recorded for oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone, all of which showed statistically significant increases during the 5-year period.
It’s a number-heavy report, so I’ve put together a quick overview with the help of the DAWN and MMWR reviews, as well as this DAWN report. You’ll find it below.
Journal Sentinel creates overdose database
Tom Kertscher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analyzed 1,200 fatal overdoses that occurred in the greater Milwaukee area over the past eight years and discovered that the majority of them were prescription drug-related. Kertscher puts the statistics in the context of the high-profile death of a local teenager, one which drew significant media attention to prescription drug abuse in the area.
Of the 1,200 deaths, which do not include suicides, just more than half were caused by prescription drugs.
An additional 19% of the deaths were caused by a mix of pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs, such as heroin.
…The victims of the most potent prescription drugs range from urban teens using anti-anxiety medications to get high to middle-age suburbanites who get hooked on narcotic painkillers after being injured on the job. They include residents of all 19 Milwaukee County communities and suburban county residents from Belgium to Kewaskum to Mukwonago.
Kertscher’s overdose database is available online and can be sorted through a search tool or overlaid on a Google map. The map can be sorted by race, age, sex, year and drug type.
Media guide focuses on drug abuse, addiction
Filed under: Health data, Health journalism, Tools
The National Institute on Drug Abuse has released a 27-page media guide condensing up-to-date facts, figures and research on drug abuse and addiction. Get the full PDF here.
The guide is intended to help reporters understand why drug addiction occurs and how it is manifested, which drugs are abused, who abuses them and how they can be dangerous. It also includes a glossary and directions to further resources.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse is part of the National Institutes of Health, which in turn is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
FDA drug-monitoring system tricky, promising
Filed under: Hot Health Headline, Pharmaceuticals, Public health, Studies
Doctors Jerry Avorn and Sebastian Schneeweiss write in the New England Journal of Medicine that the Sentinel Network the FDA is working on to track and make sense of decades of detailed prescription and drug exposure data holds promise for discovering drug interactions, but that the potential for false positives and misleading results is significant enough to make the program ineffective or dangerous if implemented improperly.
Related
Based on currently available data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 71,000 Americans under the age of 18, most of them toddlers, visited the hospital for accidental medication overdoses. Common culprits included drugs like Tylenol, Xanax, Percodan and Aspirin. The report’s authors speculate that such poisonings are on the rise because more folks are taking multiple medications at home.
(hat tip to Consumer Reports)
Propofol abuse a concern in medical profession
Filed under: Hospitals, Hot Health Headline, Nursing
Alicia Mundy of The Wall Street Journal reports that abuse of the common anesthetic propofol has become a problem the medical profession, where the drug is plentiful and easy to access. The powerful, fast-acting drug enters the bloodstream quickly and makes the user unconscious.
Mundy does note that “The number of people with a propofol problem is small, and there is little data tracking addictions or death.”
The FDA is considering whether to classify propofol as a controlled substance, which professionals say might be problematic because the sedative, which is suspected to have contributed to Michael Jackson’s death, needs to be readily available during emergencies. If it were to become a controlled substance, hospitals would have to “track inventory, account for all vials, list users, and lock it up with narcotics.”
Mundy cites another concern: “Tighter regulation might impede doctors and nurses from seeking help for addiction, because abusing a DEA-controlled drug is more likely to cost them their licenses and lead to criminal charges.”
Reporter finds voices of prescription drug abuse
In an ongoing series, reporter Elaine Grant of New Hampshire Public Radio has worked to inform the public about prescription drug abuse in the state and to put personal faces on all facets of the epidemic, from addict to dealer to physician. She also addresses possible solutions, noting that New Hampshire is one of 11 states that don’t have a prescription monitoring program, a fact Grant attributes to lobbying by the state pharmacy board and privacy advocates (who also oppose a collection program for unwanted prescriptions).
The first four stories in the series have already been filed:
- Prescription Drug Abuse a Serious, Growing Problem
- Addicts in the ER
- Pharmacy Board Stalls Drug Abuse Prevention Efforts, Advocates Say
- Rx Drugs: From the Medicine Cabinet to the Street
While there is no shortage of solid reporting on the scope and impact of the problem, the real stars of the series are Grant’s anecdotal sources: a recovered addict who ran away from home at age 15 and for years easily swiped prescription drugs and anything and everything else that could make her high, a young mother who deals a few pills to make ends meet, a 70-year-old man who sold his entire prescription every month because he needed the money even more than he needed the pain relief, a college kid who fed his opiate addiction by going from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital and a doctor who prescribes to suspected addicts because he fears them.
FDA considers certification to prescribe opioids
Filed under: Health policy, Hot Health Headline, Pharmaceuticals
Photo by Vaprotan via Flickr
Writing on the Off the Charts blog, Jacob Molyneux of the American Journal of Nursing explains that restrictions on Vicodin and Percocet (Schedule III opioids) could be joined by another regulation, resulting in a situation in which physicians may not be able to effectively treat those who suffer from moderate to severe pain.
Molyneux reports that the Food and Drug Administration is considering requiring physicians to obtain special certification in order to be allowed to prescribe Schedule II opioids, a class that includes morphine and oxycodone. The regulations under consideration might also include a national register of folks with Schedule II prescriptions.
Fla. painkiller industry flourishes, supplies nation
Filed under: Hot Health Headline, Pharmaceuticals
The Miami Herald’s Scott Hiaasen delved into South Florida’s massive painkiller industry, one which, enabled by loose laws and lax oversight, supplies a massive underground distribution network reaching throughout the South and New England. According to Hiaasen, pills flow by the thousands every day through an ever-growing number of clinics offering drugs and prescriptions to walk-in patients at strip malls and nondescript office parks.
In the last six months of 2008, doctors at Broward’s pain clinics handed out more than 6.5 million pills of the potent painkiller oxycodone — almost four pills for every Broward resident, according to federal data compiled by the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
Among Hiaasen’s findings:
- 45 South Florida doctors sold nearly nine million oxycodone pills in the last six months of 2008.
- 33 of the top 50 oxycodone-dispensing doctors in the United States practice in Broward County.
- The number of pain clinics in South Florida grew from 60 to 150 in the past year, the DEA estimates.
- Overdose deaths in Florida caused by oxycodone rose from 340 in 2005 to 705 in 2007.
In a companion story, Hiaasen looks at the other end of the prescription painkiller pipeline: rural Appalachia.
”We’re inundated with it. Florida is killing us,” said Sheriff Bill Lewis of Lewis County, Ky., population 14,000. “There’s a carload that leaves here so often — hell, every week or so — to go to Florida.”
In February, Lewis’ deputies arrested four people returning to Kentucky with almost 1,000 painkillers prescribed by Florida doctors. And last Thursday, they arrested a suspected oxycodone trafficker carrying the business card of a Hollywood pain doctor in his wallet.
Florida is the largest of the 12 states without a prescription drug monitoring plan, a fact some local lawmakers call “embarrassing.”
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