It used to be that a drug problem involved some illicit drug like marijuana, cocaine or heroin. Today the drug problem has expanded greatly, and unless you live in a cave with no access to the Internet and social media, you know that prescription medications are a serious issue.
The legislature in the state of Texas is working to try and help alleviate the state’s horrific problem will illicit prescription medications. Lawmakers are looking for strategies to curb emerging substance abuse trends among children, pregnant women, and adults, as well as to reduce health care costs and mortality. As reported in www.gosanangelo.com.
Can you believe that one pill of OxyContin can cost $72 on the street, while a bag of heroin can cost $10? The reason I mention this is that the epidemic of prescription medication abuse has a direct impact on the fact that heroin has made a major comeback as the cheaper alternative.
Drug poisoning deaths similar to heroin rose from 168 in 1999 to 525 in 2012 in Texas, more than heroin with an increase from 111 to 354 over the same time period.
Overdoses overall became the leading cause of death in 2010, above even car crashes, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, with 105 people dying every day from a drug overdose.
In 2010, 60 percent of the 38,329 drug overdose deaths were related to pharmaceuticals.
Every state is suffering from the abuse of prescription medication. So far, the only strategy that seems to work is to establish a nationwide database of patients with what they have been prescribed and filled. There are needs to be more drug classes and punishments to doctors who become “pill mills” need to be drastically increased.