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What is
Prescription Drug Abuse? |
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| Although most people
take prescription medications responsibly, there
has been an increase in the nonmedical use or, as
NIDA refers to it in this report, abuse of
prescription drugs in the United States.
A number of published
reports indicate that prescription
Drug abuse is on the rise in the United
States. According to the 2003 National Survey on
Drug Use and Health, 6.3 million Americans aged 12
and older have used prescription medications for
nonmedical purposes in the prior 30 days.
An estimated -
The number of new nonmedical
users of pain relievers increased drastically-from
573,000 in 1990 to 2.5 million in 2000. Overall,
men and women have roughly similar rates of
nonmedical use of prescription drugs (an exception
is found among 12-17-year-olds, with more females
likely to abuse these drugs).
The Drug Abuse Warning
Network (DAWN), which monitors drug mentions
(medications and drugs of abuse) from emergency
departments (EDs) across the Nation, recently
reported that two of the most frequently mentioned
prescription medications in drug abuse-related
cases are benzodiazepines (e.g., Valium, Xanax,
Klonopin, and Ativan) and
Opioid pain relievers (e.g., oxycodone,
hydrocodone,
Morphine,
Methadone, and combinations that include these
drugs). In 2002, benzodiazepines accounted for
100,784 ED visits categorized as drug
abuse-related cases and opioid pain relievers
accounted for more than 119,000. Between 1994 and
2002, ED reports of hydrocodone and oxycodone
overdoses increased by 170 percent and 450
percent, respectively. While ED visits attributed
to drug
Addiction have been increasing,
suicide-related visits have remained stable since
1995.
Source: National Institute
on Drug Abuse |
"What
many people forget is that prescription drugs have the
potential to be just as harmful as street
drugs, and that most of today's illegal drugs were
once marketed and sold as pharmaceuticals."
-- Gary W. Smith, Executive Director of Narconon
Arrowhead.
