Painkiller addiction soars in U.S.

[TexasTowelie]

NEW YORK — Sales of the nation's two most popular prescription painkillers have exploded in new parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis shows, worrying experts who say the push to relieve patients' suffering is spawning an addiction epidemic.

From New York's Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M., Drug Enforcement Administration figures show dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan. Some places saw sales increase sixteenfold.

Meanwhile, the distribution of hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin, Norco and Lortab, is rising in Appalachia, the original epicenter of the painkiller epidemic, as well as in the Midwest.

The increases have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other states. Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the death toll is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2012/apr/05/painkiller-addiction-soars-in-us/

Thread posted in General Discussion at http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002523533.

[aquart]

1. But can we please not confuse recreational users with people in actual pain?

Like they do on that idiot show, House?

[Meiko]

2. If the government would back off

from it's draconian view of weed more people would use it for pain control, I know I would.I have serious pain issues and use all kinds of painkillers and they are expensive too. I am going to have to get me a medical marijuana card and give it a try.

[newfie11]

3. I would need pain killers if I had to put up with Perry. N/T