Are Pain Medication Prescriptions Out of Control?
I just ran across a report in the online Las Vegas Sun regarding the significant increase in demand for prescription pain medication in Nevada. This problem, however, is not unique to Nevada. Most states have noticed a marked increase in prescription pain medication. I’ll put some of the highlights from the Las Vegas Sun report below. If you want to read the entire article please go to:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jul/06/painful-truth-about-painkillers/.
Nevadans consume about twice the national average of several prescription painkillers, making us among the most narcotic-addled populations in the United States, a Sun analysis has found.
The consequences are deadly. More people in Clark County die of prescription narcotics overdoses than of overdoses of illicit drugs or from vehicle accidents. In 2006, Nevadans were the No. 1 users per capita of hydrocodone — better-known by the brand names Vicodin or Lortab. We took enough of the drug to equal 48 Vicodin pills for every man, woman and child in the state for a year.
The per capita use of oxycodone, best-known by the brand name OxyContin, climbed sevenfold from 1997 to 2006, while methadone use jumped 12-fold. Nevada leads a national trend in the growing use of narcotic painkillers. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports the number of opiate prescriptions escalated from about 40 million in 1991 to 180 million in 2007 — a 350 percent increase at a time when the nation’s population increased by 19 percent.
The United States makes up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, but is supplied 99 percent of its hydrocodone and 71 percent of its oxycodone, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
To learn more about chronic pain management please check out our website at www.addiction-free.com and go to our Publications page and check out my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. You can also check out our Articles page to download my free article Avoiding the Prescription Drug Trap.
