The first National Prescription Drug Abuse Summit will be held in Florida in April of 2012.
Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, will be the Summit’s keynote speaker.
“We are excited that Dr. Volkow will share her expertise during the Summit,” said Karen Kelly, the president and CEO of Operation UNITE, a Kentucky-based organization that is coordinating the Summit. “She is a highly regarded professional whose work has engaged the entire health care system to seek appropriate responses and effective treatments for addiction.”
Florida has made great strides in the fight against prescription drug abuse in 2011, and it is hoped that the progress will continue into the new year.
Posts Tagged ‘Prescription Drug Abuse’
First National Prescription Drug Abuse Summit To Be Held In Florida
Friday, December 16th, 2011U.S. Representative Mary Bono Mack Concerned About Prescription Drug Abuse
Sunday, December 11th, 2011U.S. Representative Mary Bono Mack is concerned about the growing prescription drug abuse epidemic in this country. Bono Mack said she does not want the fight to deny these powerful and potentially addictive drugs to patients in severe pain from late-stage cancer or other diseases.
“I recognize there is pain and it needs to be treated,” said Bono Mack.
Mack wants physicians to be more cognizant of the potentially deadly ramifications of prescribing drugs that deliver such a powerful high. Physicians should not prescribe these drugs for medical conditions that can be treated with less powerful drugs. Bono Mack hopes her suggestions will curb “doctor shopping.”
“They are masters at it,” said Bono Mack of the people who seek multiple prescriptions from different physicians.
Bono Mack’s son, Chesare, struggled with an addiction to oxycontin, but has been clean since 2007.
“I care about this issue passionately because I have been exposed to it personally.”
Florida Still Struggling With Prescription Drug Abuse
Friday, December 9th, 2011According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from prescription pain pills have reached epidemic levels. The CDC reported that there were enough prescription pain pills to medicate every person in the United States around the clock for one month. In Florida, seven people die every day from prescription drugs. In Hernando County, there were 44 deaths attributed to prescription drugs last year.
“The abuse of prescription medication has become an epidemic that cannot be ignored,” said Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis. “Many suspects who are taken into custody admit to committing crimes in order to obtain money to support their drug addiction.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration says that Florida is the state listed on the applications of half of the country’s new pharmacies.
“Until we can make it socially unacceptable to use these powerful and highly addictive painkillers in anything but terminal cases, this problem will continue to plague our society just like morphine and heroin have since the last half of the 1800s,” Nienhuis said.
Medical Students In Ohio Educate Young People About Prescription Drugs
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011Medical students from the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine are trying to educate elementary, middle and high school students about the dangers of prescription drug abuse.
OU-HCOM’s drug education group started last year. The group visits schools and uses dramatic skits and hard facts to open the dialogue about prescription drugs.
“The skits are designed to be situations that they might actually encounter,” said Kaitlyn Kelly, one of the initiators of the group.
The students are a tough audience, but appear to get the message.
“I think it was pretty interesting because, well, they’re (the drug education group) coming in, using their time to teach us how alcohol and all the drugs can really affect you in all the wrong ways and all the good ways,” said Kyler Young, an eighth grader at Athens Middle School.
Kentucky Senator Working To Regulate Pill Mills
Monday, December 5th, 2011Kentucky State Senator Robert Stivers is working diligently to regulate pill mills in the state, and stem the tide of prescription drug abuse in Kentucky.
“What you are beginning to see is the fact that the bordering states have all gotten tighter regulations on them so they are all starting to migrate to Kentucky because we are much more lax,” said Stivers.
Stivers wants to stop “fly in” physicians, hired by pain clinics in Kentucky who are only contributing to the problem of prescription drug abuse.
“They only come in maybe a couple of days a month, they don’t sit there and evaluate you and they don’t check and do exams on you, they don’t see how flexible you are or how stiff you are,” Stivers said.
Pharmacy Robber In Daytona Beach Sought
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011With prescription drug abuse consistently on the rise in Florida, pharmacy robberies are also increasing across the state.
Now, police in Daytona Beach are looking for an armed man who allegedly robbed two different pharmacies in Daytona Beach looking for prescription pain pills. In recent months, pharmacy robberies have increased not only in Florida, but in states across the United States, posing a new challenge for law enforcement authorities.
In June of last year, a pharmacy robbery in eastern Long Island resulted in four shooting deaths.
Orange City Council Enacts Pill Mill Ordinance
Thursday, November 17th, 2011The Orange City, Florida City Council enacted an ordinance limiting “pill mills” to industrially zoned parcels in the city. The businesses, which are legal in Florida, have, unfortunately contributed to the prescription drug abuse epidemic in Florida and often advertise themselves as pain clinics, massage parlors, detox centers and urgent-care facilities.
The City Council voted unanimously in favor of the new law and hope to see a decrease in prescription drug abuse as a result.
New monitoring system in Ontario
Monday, April 4th, 2011The Canadian province of Ontario has passed new legislation in the hopes of stemming the tide of prescription drug abuse.
Ontario plans to launch a new monitoring system that would monitor prescription painkillers and other controlled substances. Ontario already has a database to track drugs prescribed under the public program for senior citizens, welfare recipients and the disabled. The new legislation allows the expansion of the system to cover all drugs dispensed in the province.
Opioid overdoses in Ontario have risen in recent years and claim more lives than HIV. According to Health Minister Deb Matthews, the new system would alert law enforcement if someone goes “doctor shopping” or attempts to fill prescriptions at different pharmacies.
Prescriptions in Ontario for oxycodone and related drugs rose 900 percent since 1991.
Prescription drug abuse is on the rise in Oklahoma
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
According to autopsy reports in Oklahoma, hydrocodone abuse cost 130 people their lives in 2009. This figure is more than overdose deaths from methamphetamine and cocaine combined, reinforcing the fact that prescription drug abuse is on the rise in Oklahoma.
On a per capita basis, Oklahomans were prescribed more hydrocodone than Californians. This is compelling evidence that the epidemic of prescription drug abuse is escalating in Oklahoma, as in every other state in the country. The Drug Enforcement Administration found that only Nevada, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky and Alabama exceeded Oklahoma in hydrocodone prescriptions in 2008. According to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, residents were prescribed 120 million hydrocodone pills in 2008.
“I used to say that prescription drug abuse is a silent cancer. But it’s manifested itself to the level where you don’t need an MRI to detect this cancer now. We’ve got to get a grip on this,” said Darrell Weaver, bureau director.
Prescription drug abuse in the military and veterans has tripled in recent years
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
It is believed that more than 300,000 service men and women have returned home from Iraq or Afghanistan suffering from depression, post traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury. Unfortunately, this fact has resulted in an increase of prescription drug abuse among the military and veterans.
A new survey from the Department of Defense finds that the illegal use of prescription drugs has tripled in recent years. In the past ten years, $280 million dollars have been spent by the military on psychiatric drugs, hoping to help active duty personnel and veterans conquer their problems.