According to a 2011 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, the number of people dying from overdoses of powerful opioid pain relievers tripled in just the past decade.
Opioids are pain relief drugs that are chemically similar to opium.
These opioid deaths are just part of a larger epidemic of drug overdose deaths. In 2008, more than 36,000 people lost their lives from prescription drug overdoses. Close to 15,000 of these involved one of these opioid pain reliever (OPR) such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Lortab or methadone. That’s more than three times the number who died in 1999.
Every year, there are more of these drugs in distribution as doctors write more and more prescriptions for these addictive pills.
The CDC report also revealed that in 2009, 1.2 million emergency department (ED) visits were related to misuse or abuse of pharmaceuticals, compared with 1.0 million ED visits related to use of illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
OPRs now account for more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. OPRs frequently are diverted for non-medical use by patients or their friends or sold on the street. According to national surveys, an estimated 4.8% of the U.S. population aged 12 or older used an OPR non-medically in 2010.
If you wonder why the cost of health insurance is skyrocketing, another study estimated that non-medical use of OPR costs insurance companies up to $72.5 billion annually in health-care costs.
Such painkillers “are meant to help people who have severe pain,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC. “They are, however, highly addictive.”
Abuse figures vary greatly on a state by state basis, with the highest rate of abuse in Oklahoma and the lowest in Nebraska and Iowa. Across the country, an estimated 418,000 twelve and thirteen-year-old children abused one of the OPRs. That statistic took a ten percent jump in just one year.
Dr. Frieden said that the overdose deaths reflect the increase in the number of narcotic painkillers that are being prescribed. Every year, enough pills are prescribed to keep every American dosed up around the clock for one full month.
In order to help prevent drug abuse, Narconon takes significant measures to form community coalitions and educate other community groups on how to help get drugs out of our communities. To find out more about what Narconon is doing to effectively educate our youth, form alliances that work, and more about Narconon objectives and its effective drug prevention and rehabilitation programs, please read the following article: http://www.narconon-news.org/narconon/taking-drugs-out-of-the-communities.html.
CDC. WONDER [Database]. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2010. Available at http://wonder.cdc.gov. Accessed September 27, 2011.
Warner M, Chen L, Makuc D. Increase in fatal poisonings involving opioid analgesics in the United States, 1999–2006. NCHS Data Brief. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics; 2009. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db22.htm. Accessed October 3, 2011.
Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. Prescription for peril: how insurance fraud finances theft and abuse of addictive prescription drugs. Washington, DC: Coalition Against Insurance Fraud; 2007. Available at http://www.insurancefraud.org/downloads/drugDiversion.pdf ??. Accessed September 26, 2011.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Results from the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: volume 1: summary of national findings. Rockville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Studies; 2010. Available at http://oas.samhsa.gov/nsduh/2k9nsduh/2k9resultsp.pdf. Accessed October 3, 2011
Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. Prescription for peril: how insurance fraud finances theft and abuse of addictive prescription drugs. Washington, DC: Coalition Against Insurance Fraud; 2007. Available at http://www.insurancefraud.org/downloads/drugDiversion.pdf. Accessed September 26, 2011.