According to a National Public Radio article aired on January 30th, 2009, researchers say that prescription pain killers such as oxycontin and vicodin now kill five times as many people as heroin and almost twice as many as cocaine. Prescription drug abuse has greatly increased in rural areas and is the leading cause of death in young adults. More than car wrecks, heart attacks, and cancer. The vast majority of overdose deaths came from legal prescription drugs. The number of overdose deaths in the United States doubled between 1995 and 2005 when more than 32,000 people died. Federal researchers have tracked the increase of overdose deaths with alarm, they call them “poisonings” but nearly all of them are blamed on drugs.
Lois Fingerhut is a researcher for the National Center for Health Statistics. She says, “What most people think of when they think of poisoning is a child getting into the
Draino that is underneath the sink. That’s the smallest part of poisoning deaths.” In fact, Fingerhut says that the nation has past an important milestone. For as long as they have kept statistics the leading causes of death from injury were car accidents, guns, and, trailing far behind, drug overdose. In 2004 drug overdoses and other poisonings killed more Americans than guns.
Fingerhut and other researchers get their information from death certificates which give them clues as to who is dying and why. The victims are mostly young and middle-aged adults, are more likely to live in rural states, and usually overdose by accident. Some victims have valid prescriptions for the drugs that kill them. A 2005 study shows an increase in accidental poisonings and liver failure in patients who combine a narcotic pain killer like vicodin with over the counter acetaminophen, better known as Tylenol. It has been tough on police to crack down on the misuse of prescription drugs. West Virginia State Police Sergeant Mike Smith says that unlike illegal drugs, the mere possession of a prescription pain killer is not a crime. “So your dealing with crack cocaine, everybody knows that crack cocaine is . . taboo. If you have crack cocaine or marijuana in your pocket then you have an illegal drug in you pocket.”
Sergeant Smith leads a three person unit that investigates prescription drug abuse. He says that the pills are stolen from medicine cabinets, pharmacies, nursing homes, and they can be ordered illegally on the Internet. Patients can also convince doctors to write them a prescription and then sell the drugs on the street.
Doctors in West Virginia are having a tough time. Their patients are getting older and work in mining and construction where injuries are common. Compared to ten years ago, West Virginians now consume 4 times as much of the top pain killers that contribute to death. Doctors are now finding themselves torn between treating their patients and covering themselves. Doctors do not want the drugs that they prescribe to wind up in the hands of teenagers.
Reporter - Scott Finn from Charleston West Virgin
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