Brittany Murphy, Michael Jackson, Heath Legder... America's fatal addiction to prescription drugs

[tridim]

From The Sunday Times May 2, 2010

The biggest killer drugs in the States right now are legal and have been prescribed. Here's how easy it is to score and to get hookedKate Spicer I went to my appointment with “Dr C’ in Los Angeles with a shopping list of the most commonly abused types of drug: pain relievers, tranquillisers, stimulants and sedatives. Beforehand, a local addiction specialist, Bernadine Fried, had briefed me on how to approach your doctor like an addict and still come away with fistfuls of pills.

The script went like this: “Say, ‘I just went to my first NA meeting, I’m struggling with my addiction. I’m super anxious, but I also have these pain issues from an old injury.’” Fried stops to think. “Right, what do we have there? He should have given you an opiate , Xanax and maybe an antidepressant. Now we just need a stimulant, such as Adderall, and a sleeping pill. Say, ‘I’m having a hard time focusing and my work is so important to me and it’s all that’s keeping me going at this difficult time.’ Oh, and then say, ‘I can’t sleep.’”

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Within a few hours, I decide to have half a dose of the Klonopin, to take the edge off my tooth-gnashing, rubbish-talking, Adderalled personality. Then I go for a drink, but after one glass of wine I’m grappling to control myself. Messy is the technical term. Yet I am still legal to drive. I go home and take a sleeping pill. I watch television and through the sludgy fog I get tunnel vision. Famished, I eat a big bag of crisps and pass out. In the morning, I feel thick-headed and slow. An Adderall will sort that out...

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America is in the grip of what emergency doctors describe as an epidemic. The National Institute of Drug Abuse has watched the use of all illicit drugs and cigarettes drop steadily over the past five years, while prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse has risen. Oxycontin, the brand name of the strongest opiate on the market, has been called hillbilly heroin because of its abuse among the working classes, but Courtney Love, Winona Ryder and, ironically, the right-wing, antidrug shock jock Rush Limbaugh have had well-publicised problems with the drug. Then there is Adderall, and the new-generation “benzos”, such as Klonopin and Xanax. Adderall’s name crops up around fashionable thinness; when the size-zero ­debate first flared, it was rumoured to be a significant agent to that alarming skin’n’bone’n’suntan Hollywood look. “Adderall is really a treatment for ADHD, but it’s handed out like candy,” Fried says. “Its abuse usually indicates eating disorders.”

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More: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7109253.ece

My mother, brother and nephews are using (but not technically abusing) these drugs, and it scares me to death.

[Warpy]

1. First, there's a vast difference between dependency and addiction

Dependence means you need a drug to function and will become physically ill if it is withdrawn suddenly. Dependency can apply to insulin and steroids as well as opiates.

Addiction can best be summed up by the AA phrase, "One is too many and a thousand isn't enough." That means once a drug or drink is taken, following it with more has become a compulsion. An addict is chasing that elusive first 5 minute rush of a high and will continue doing more and more drugs until he is out or he passes out.

The problem now is that too many people start to demand drugs to cope with the side effects of drugs they originally needed and end up on a cocktail of drugs that's expensive and might be fatal if they're withdrawn suddenly. Docs do need to be a little more aware of this problem with their patients. That doesn't mean that people who are dependent on drugs don't need them. It means they need closer monitoring.

I take Ultram for pain. I don't function well without it and if I skip it for a day or two, my blood pressure does funny things and I have to be careful standing up. I have been on the same dose for years and I don't increase it, nor do I intend to. However, leaving me in pain is not an option. That will lead to complete social isolation, depression, and suicide. I've nearly been all the way down that road before and don't care to do it again. It's the same for all pain patients.

Docs just need to be more vigilant about patients who use pills to cope with other pills. Psychological counseling might be indicated. Certainly, closer monitoring is.

[tridim]

3. Thanks for the additional info. nt

[HuckleB]

7. +1

[Chimichurri]

2. My Aunt became addicted to muscle relaxers at age 60 and

she's not the person I've known my whole life. She's a zombie who can barely speak. Because her 'medications' are prescribed to her, everyone in my family is in deep denial.

I have a girlfriend who was prescribed zanax before surgery 5 years ago and today has been in and out of rehab for addiction. She suffers seizures because without her 40 pills a day, her brain cannot function normally.

It is scary and very real. These people where not out partying, they were introduced to these powerful narcotics by their doctors.

[tridim]

4. Thats exactly why I worry about my Mom.

She has changed into a completely different person during the past 15 or so years. I wish my Dad would talk to her about it, but he also puts full trust in anyone with a "Dr." before his name.

My nephews are on the same drugs lots of kids are on these days. They're not addressing the cause of the underlying problems, at all. It's just sad to watch.

I address all the issues these powerful franken-drugs claim to "solve" with light cannabis use, and no I don't consider it hypocritical, I consider it smart.

[PostIndustrial02]

5. Don't go over-vigilant though

I live in Ohio where the state has been cracking down on "abused" medication. I've had some problems with some chronic pain recently. I have never had problems with medication abuse or the like, but I had trouble getting anything more than ibuprofen for my problems because doctors were too scared to prescribe anything that the state would crack down on. People need to be better educated about drugs and what drug abuse can mean; this does not mean that every drug that can be abused needs to be taken off the market.

As a note, when I was finally given something for my pain, It was seizure medication not even marked for the type of pain I had. I found it just as debilitating and dependence-provoking as anything else they could have given me. The only difference was that I did not become "high" from it. What we need is better drug education, not tougher drug enforcement. After all, how much tougher can drug enforcement get in this country?

[varkam]

6. And the problem gets significantly more complicated...

for those who have a legitimate need for drugs like narcotic painkillers for whom nothing else really works.