Prescription drugs have replaced cocaine and other illicit substances as the leading cause of drug abuse deaths in Florida, a new study says. Despite this, the state has no prescription drug monitoring program, and the authors of the study say Florida must do more to curb the abuse of legal medication.
The study, conducted by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission, involved an analysis of 168,900 autopsies performed in 2007. The researchers found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids like Oxycontin caused 2,328 fatalities. The study also found that while the number of people whose deaths involved heroin increased 14 percent in 2007, to 110, deaths related to the opioid oxycodone increased 36 percent, to 1,253.
Drugs containing benzodiazepine, such as Valium, were implicated in 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).
Unfortunately, Florida is not alone. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, around seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs — an increase of 80 percent in just six years. The Drug Abuse Warning Network reports that since 1995, the number of drug abuse-related emergency room visits involving pain relievers increased nationwide by 153 percent.
However, while 38 other states have passed laws allowing for the monitoring of oft-abused prescription drugs, Florida has made little progress in developing such legislation. The report makes it clear that lax oversight is allowing Florida’s legal drug abuse problem to grow out of control. For instance the absence of a prescription drug monitoring program means doctors cannot determine if a patient has been able to receive more than one prescription for a medication from multiple doctors.
In addition to a monitoring plan, Florida law enforcement officials say the state also needs to find a way to crack down on illegal internet sales of prescription drugs and to encourage doctors and pharmacists to identify potential abusers.
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June 21st, 2009 at 4:25 am
This scares me for legitimate pain suffers such as my husband. He has a chronic pain condition, reflex sympathetic dystrophy aka chronic pain syndrome, and even has an implant in his spine to help with the pain. His illness and the pain that comes with walking has caused him to be restricted to a wheelchair. He receives pain medication for the times when the pain is more than he can bear and that the spinal cord stimulator (SCS) can block. What if he goes to the dentist and receives pain medication for a dental procedure? A few years ago he had surgery to replace the battery on his SCS. The doctor asked him which pain medication he wanted to take home. He said he would just take the same medication he always got as it was not one of the stronger ones and worked fine. He didn’t want a stronger medication. We took the prescripition to the pharmacy we always used and they refused to fill it. They said he already had one for that medication. His pain management doctor, who gave him his regular medication was the one who did the surgery and wrote the “new” prescripition so it’s not like he was doctor shopping. So here was a man who got 12 pain pills a month of what I would say was a moderate pain killer (not oxycontin or oxycodone) who was being denied a legitimate medication prescribed by his regular doctor for a surgery he had just had. He wasn’t even able to go in the pharmacy to fill it. I told the pharmicist that he had just had surgery and she was going to be the one to tell him he was not going to get his medication. I got him into the store and she told him she was not going to fill his medication. It did not matter to her that he had just been released from the hospital and needed the medication. According to her he had got his regular medication filled a couple of weeks before and he should have had some of the 12 pills left to get him through the recovery of the surgery. People think these things can’t or won’t happen. Trust me, you’re wrong. Many of the stories I have read on this new law state that it will be used for diverson and in limted cases be reported to law enforcement. They say it will be used to get people into rehab who need it. What rehab? We don’t have enough rehab now especially rehab for the poor or uninsured. Is this rehab going to magically appear? I believe a better way would have been to better regulate the doctors prescribing these outrageous amounts of medications. This is just another intrusion into our private lives by the government and innocent people such as my husband may suffer because of this.