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If you still have doubts about whether prescription painkillers are a problem, read this article in USA Today. The statistics are clear. How we are ever going to provide the drug detox and drug rehab facilities to handle this problem is really beyond me. Here a sampling of the statistics:

• The DEA’s deputy assistant administrator, Joseph T. Rannazzisi, testified in a congressional hearing that he estimates about 9,000 illegally provide prescription drugs to patients.
• A 2004 government study estimated between 2 million and 3 million doses of codeine, hydrocodone and oxycodone are stolen annually from pharmacies, distributors and drug manufacturers. That represents a lot of people who should be in drug detox.
• Sales of the five major painkillers rose 88% between 1997 and 2005. That’s also from the DEA.
• More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during a one year period – enough to give more than 300 milligrams of painkillers to every person in the country.
• Oxycodone, the chemical used in OxyContin, is responsible for most of the increase. Oxycodone use jumped nearly six-fold between 1997 and 2005.

An AP investigation cited the following as the reasons for the increase:

• The population is getting older and is therefore in more pain.
• The increase in dollars spent by the pharmaceutical industry on marketing - $11 billion in 1997, $30 billion in 2005. Also, the profit margins for drug companies are three to four times higher than other Fortune 500 industries. Follow the money.
• Pain management philosophy is becoming more drug-oriented.

I’m sure all of the above is true. But what are we going to do about it? We need to cut the advertising, prosecute doctors and other offenders, educate the public, and get more drug detox and drug rehab programs going that are capable of handling prescription drug addiction. And all of it has to be done asap.

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