Prescription Drug Abuse Surged 400 Percent in Past Decade

Posted by admin on August 5, 2010 under Prescription Drugs | Be the First to Comment

A new White House study found a 400 percent jump in prescription drug abuse between 1998 and 2008. Experts blame a lack of monitoring programs as well as Americans’ increasing unwillingness to bear even small pains.

Prescription drug abuse is not just on the rise – it has become a national crisis, according to a just-released White House study detailing a 400 percent increase in substance abuse treatment admissions for prescription pain relievers between 1998 and 2008.

The report underscores the need for regulation amid a culture that has become increasingly reliant on ever-more-powerful and addictive prescription drugs, say experts.

The non-medical use of prescription pain relievers is now the second-most prevalent form of illicit drug use in America “and its tragic consequences are seen in substance abuse treatment centers and hospital emergency departments throughout our nation,” says Pamela Hyde, administrator of The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in a statement.

The statistics are being released to highlight a problem that has become all too familiar through the high-profile deaths of such celebrities as Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith. But the problem affects all ages and socioeconomic strata, says Dr. Scott Glaser, president of Pain Specialists of Greater Chicago.

From 1994 to 2003, the number of prescriptions for controlled substances rose from 22 million to 354 million annually, says Dr. Glaser. The number of admissions for misuse of prescription painkillers to hospital emergency rooms rose from some 40,000 in 1994 to over 300,000 in 2008, he adds.

“There has been a strong push among doctors in recent years to be more aggressive in addressing pain,” he notes. “This has led to the dramatic increase in opiates such as morphine, but the problem is there hasn’t been a whole lot of science to go along with that.”

The abuse of these strong drugs is an indication of a much more widespread cultural problem, says addiction specialist Clare Kavin of The Waismann Method, a treatment center for opiate dependency, which has treated many celebrity addicts.

“We are in a culture of immediate gratification and nobody will put up with even the slightest discomfort anymore,” she says. This underlying attitude leads many patients to push for stronger painkillers when lower strength – but non-addictive – drugs would have sufficed in the past, she adds.

“We are in a perfect nightmare,” says Andrea Barthwell, who has advised the White House on national drug policies. Many of the factors that have come together to fuel this explosive problem – such as the lack of effective monitoring of prescriptions not just between doctors, but between pharmacies, and from state to state – have been well known for years.

Glaser points out that a federal monitoring program was signed into law in 2005 but funding has languished ever since. Glaser and his colleagues from the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians are just back from lobbying on Capitol Hill for $55 million to fund the program, which they say will pay for itself in five years.

Currently some 37 states have some form of monitoring, Glaser says, but they are inconsistent and lead to widespread abuse. He points to widespread practices such as:

• Easy access to prescription drugs through the Internet
• Caravans of people crossing state lines – Florida is well known for its open-door clinics with easy access to drugs
• Street sales fueled by lax oversight
• Teens selling prescription drugs to each other

The increasing potency of presciption drugs can lead to what Ms. Barthwell calls a “frightening and unprecedented scenario”: “In the past, the number of people exposed to opiate-level highs was very narrow,” she says. “But now, with a wide cross-section of the population for the first time experiencing this kind of dependency, we are seeing a record number of people turning to heroin when they can no longer afford the more expensive prescription drugs.”

The data released Thursday highlight “how serious a threat to public health we face from the abuse of prescription drugs,” said Gil Kerlikowske, National Drug Policy Director, in a statement. “The spikes in prescription drug abuse rates captured by this study are dramatic, pervasive, and deeply disturbing,” he adds.

Pain Doctors Want Drug Tracking

Posted by admin on August 4, 2010 under Healthcare, Prescription Drugs | Be the First to Comment

By Julian Pecquet – 06/28/10 07:56 PM ET

More than a hundred pain management specialists are in Washington this week to warn lawmakers about the dangers of prescription drug abuse.

The physicians — members of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP) — want lawmakers to appropriate $55 million over the next five years to help states collect data on consumers who “doctor shop” and on physicians who over-prescribe or incorrectly prescribe pharmaceuticals.

“There are many states now where there are more young people who die from prescription drug abuse than die from car accidents — and that’s the first time in history,” said David Kloth, past president of the association and a Connecticut pain management doctor.

The physicians want Congress to reauthorize a 2005 bill providing grants to states that collect prescription drug information and share it with physicians and pharmacists — and law enforcement officials when there’s an investigation — while protecting patients’ privacy. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), an original sponsor of the bill, is expected to introduce legislation shortly.

Despite widespread agreement that prescription drug abuse is a serious problem — the 2005 law passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and by voice vote in the House — finding money to fight the scourge has not been easy.

No funds were appropriated until last year, Kloth said, when the Obama administration set aside $2 million in the Federal Omnibus Spending bill for the program, known as the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting (NASPER).

Kloth said Capitol Hill sources have told ASIPP that Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) has blocked appropriations for the grants in the past. Rogers, the commonwealth’s former  attorney general, supports a monitoring program that’s more focused on law enforcement and may fear NASPER would compete for funding, Kloth said.

Rogers’s office denied any blocking of grants and defended the lawmaker’s commitment to prescription drug abuse.

“Congressman Rogers has been a leader in the fight against the epidemic of prescription drug abuse for a decade, and while it’s true we disagree with the NASPER approach, to say the congressman has ‘blocked’ funding for the program is simply not true. If that were the case, the millions of dollars appropriated for the program over the years would not be established law today. Congressman Rogers believes NASPER is a duplicative program propped up by the pain physician lobby and six years too late. Instead, he has championed state-sponsored prescription drug monitoring programs, supported by the Department of Justice,” said Rogers’s spokeswoman Stefani Zimmerman.

To date, 41 states have monitoring programs in place, according to ASIPP, although six are not operational.

However, many states do not meet NASPER standards — failing, for example, to monitor prescriptions electronically; only covering certain drug categories; or giving pharmacies more than seven days to submit information.

Only two states — Kentucky and Connecticut — are attempting to share information among states, which ASIPP says is necessary to prevent drugs abusers from stocking up on pills in states such as Florida that have laxer standards.

“Fragmented funding of multiple unauthorized programs will only create confusion among states applying for funding,” ASIPP says in a fact sheet on the NASPER program, “as well as both [the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services] as they try to administer similar programs.”

The group is advocating for other issues as well:

• Healthcare reform: The law incorporates several provisions of the National Pain Care Policy Act, but they need to be appropriated. In particular, ASIPP wants funds allocated for an Institute of Medicine conference on pain next year and a training grant program for medical schools and other entities to educate and train healthcare professionals in pain care.

• Physician payments: A permanent repeal of Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate formula.

• Ambulatory Surgery Center payments: ASIPP wants higher reimbursement rates for surgical procedures performed outside of hospitals.