Prescription Drug Abuse Rampant

Addiction is addiction. Whether the drugs are prescribed from a legal doctor or the one dealing off the street corner.

Abuse of prescription medications is rampant - reaching literally every corner of the country, according to data compiled by Denver Health's nationwide surveillance system.

The system analyzed reports of drug abuse and found that incidents involving prescriptions for opioids - a class of pain-relieving drugs that includes Percocet, OxyContin, Vicodin and Dilaudid - occurred in 93 percent of the nation's postal-code regions.

"The really important thing to understand as a parent is every place - in every town, every county in the U.S. - has prescription-drug abuse occurring," said Dr. Richard Dart, director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, a part of Denver Health.

The findings follow a 2005 federal report that found prescription-drug abuse increased 42.5 percent nationwide between 2001 and 2005.

That report, from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said that in 2005, 11.4 million people had abused prescription drugs in the past 12 months, up from 8 million in 2001.
Dart said contracts with private buyers of the data prohibit the release of specific age and regional information.
He did say people between 20 and 30 years old account for the greatest share of prescription-drug abuse.
Typically, teenagers start out by snatching the pills from their parents' medicine cabinets, Dart said.

DENVER POST