Painkiller Prescriptions are now the biggest cause of fatal drug overdoses
Posted by: Doug in Auto Accidents, Bicycle Accidents, Disability, Disease Claims, Dog Bites and Animal Attacks, Injured Athletes, brain injury
Chronic pain victims must avoid addiction to prescription medications by regular visits to their treating doctors advises permanent disability lawyer Doug Landau
With so many ABRAMS LANDAU clients permanently disabled and suffering from chronic pain, Sterling and South Riding Virginia disability and injury lawyer Doug Landau frequently recommends that clients check with their treating doctors to make sure their dosages are under control. The number of overdose deaths from opioid painkillers — opium-like drugs such as morphine and codeine — more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, to 13,800 deaths that year, according to CDC statistics.
USA TODAY reports that addiction to prescription painkillers — which kill thousands of Americans a year — has become a largely unrecognized epidemic. In fact, prescription drugs cause most of the more than 26,000 fatal overdoses each year, says Leonard Paulozzi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the past, most overdoses were due to illegal narcotics, such as heroin, with most deaths in big cities. Prescription painkillers have now surpassed heroin and cocaine, however, as the leading cause of fatal overdoses, Paulozzi says. And the rate of fatal overdoses is now about as high in rural areas — 7.8 deaths per 100,000 people — as in cities, where the rate is 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to a paper he published last year in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.
“The biggest and fastest-growing part of America’s drug problem is prescription drug abuse,” says Robert DuPont, a former White House drug czar and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “The statistics are unmistakable.”
About 120,000 Americans a year go to the emergency room after overdosing on opioid painkillers, says Laxmaiah Manchikanti, chief executive officer and board chairman for the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians. Experts say it’s easy to see why so many Americans are abusing painkillers. There are lots of the drugs around, and they’re relatively easy to get, says David Zvara, chair of anesthesiology at University of North Carolina Hospitals.
As Americans age and carry extra pounds, more are asking for pain relief to cope with joint problems, back pain and other ailments, Zvara says. He says he has seen a huge increase in the number of patients seeking care for chronic pain. Paulozzi notes that the rise in fatal overdoses almost exactly parallels a corresponding rise in prescription painkiller sales. In surveys, about 5% of Americans say they have used a prescription narcotic in the past month. Doctors today are also more apt to prescribe pain pills in an effort to relieve real suffering, says James Garbutt, a UNC addiction specialist.
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