Prescription pills blamed for 'Pharmageddon' in Kentucky (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Paul Adams
BBC News, Kentucky

In the green, wooded hills of eastern Kentucky, two mothers pore over photographs of daughters lost to prescription pills.

Sarah Shay and Savannah Kissick were school friends in Morehead, both addicted to an array of perfectly legal drugs.

Sarah died in 2006, at the age of 19. Savannah followed three years later, aged 22. Both victims of an epidemic of prescription pill abuse sweeping parts of America.

When their mothers reel off the names together, they make them sound like weapons.

"Xanax. Klonopin. Oxycodone. Hydrocodone."
***
more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13735793




Damn! We could be devoting all our resources to this scourge -- if only they weren't being tied up by the war against that deadly Schedule I killer, marijuana.

[Wilms]

1. The "epidemic of prescription pill abuse" means higher profits down on the pharm.

So it's low-priority.

[Tippy]

2. Big problem here in TN with Bath Salts.....

Just the other day in our local paper there were 2 separate incodents...One guy ran into the hospital naked claiming snakes were all over him. The other took place at a local Motel...the place had to be evacuated because this couple sprayed pepper spray all over the entire building. None of these people actually live in our county but in a nearby county. This couple had children with thme....Dam fool people...I thought the meth problem was bad but this seems to be getting worse much quicker....

[CBGLuthier]

3. I have a lot of cousins in Kentucky. This shit has ruined more than a few of their lives

One of them was a promising basketball player with a scholarship and all and she got into the pills and sits in jail now.

Just more depressing blows to one of the most depressing and depressed regions in America.

[madmax]

4. I have a big plastic box

filled with various drugs for this bullshit or that. I've been researching these poisons because I've been getting worse and new problems are poping up.

On Monday - he's closed today I'm taking that box and he is going to sit his ass down with me for however long it takes and we are going to eliminate all that I do not need to sustain life.

AND then I'm going to bitch slap him across his face. This crap has been going on with me for almost 3 years. Started in the sacred halls of Duke U Med. Ctr. otherwise known to me as 'the lab' or enter at own risk and kiss yer a** good bye. Thanks for allowing me to vent.

I'm sorry for those who are at the mercy of the medical profession in this country.

[Scottybeamer70]

5. Prescription drugs are good for Big Pharma

but not much else I'm afraid. I know a few people who take so many drugs every day it is ridiculous. They are walking zombies,
and always feel like hell. I thought "legal" drugs were supposed to help you feel better, not worse. Too many lives taken at
too early an age, because of prescription drugs. I guess people think it's all right if it's legal. Makes no sense to me.
I'm just guessing there are deaths because of illegal drugs, but I rarely hear of it. The only one's I ever see on the news
are the ones with prescription drugs. There are drug dealers, and then there are drug dealers.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. "I'm just guessing there are deaths because of illegal drugs ..."

From the next para in the article:

Earlier this year, the White House described the epidemic as the country's fastest growing drug problem, accounting for more accidental overdoses than the combined total from heroin and crack cocaine in the 1970s and 80s.

Just to put things in perspective.

[Oxy Contin]

7. Cancer, injuries, old age, arthritis, ruptured, herniated, bulging disks, degenerative disk disease

chronic pain, I can think of lots of reasons and people who need pain medicine.


If you don't need managed pain care you can count yourself lucky, lucky, lucky.

And you never know what's going to happen to you or your loved ones in the future.

Good, Gawd, some people are naive.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Funny. I've had a seriously bad back for 35 years, and I have a HELL of a time

getting prescriptions.

I'll be pretty much OK, with chronic low-level pain, for months, then suddenly it will go bad and send me scurrying (hobbling, actually) off to the doctor to get a non-refillable, 30 tab prescription of hydrocodone or oxycodone. I'll use a little more than half to get me through the next week or 10 days of crisis, and the rest will get used over the next few months when I get hit too bad for ibuprophen to handle it but not bad enough to lay me up. I'd like (and IMO need) to be able to use more, more often, but my doctors (new doc at same practice replaced old doc) have been very leery of 'overprescribing', mostly because of stories like this I suspect. I've averaged about 3 - 4 incidents a year over the last 15 years.

But I agree, from a different perspective - if MJ was available for legal, recreational use, I'd have a LOT easier time getting the pain medication I need (not to mention that I'd also be able to make use of the MJ duing the more common, chronic pain episodes).