Drug overdose deaths up for 11th consecutive year

OxyContin pills are arranged for a photo at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. / AP Photo/Toby Talbot

CHICAGO Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines.

"The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed the data.

In 2010, the CDC reported, there were 38,329 drug overdose deaths nationwide. Medicines, mostly prescription drugs, were involved in nearly 60 percent of overdose deaths that year, overshadowing deaths from illicit narcotics.

• For an exec, breaking pain pill addiction is impossible
• Clamping down on prescription painkiller abuse

The report appears in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

It details which drugs were at play in most of the fatalities. As in previous recent years, opioid drugs — which include OxyContin and Vicodin — were the biggest problem, contributing to 3 out of 4 medication overdose deaths.

Frieden said many doctors and patients don't realize how addictive these drugs can be, and that they're too often prescribed for pain that can be managed with less risky drugs.

They're useful for cancer, "but if you've got terrible back pain or terrible migraines," using these addictive drugs can be dangerous, he said.

Medication-related deaths accounted for 22,134 of the drug overdose deaths in 2010.

Anti-anxiety drugs including Valium were among common causes of medication-related deaths, involved in almost 30 percent of them. Among the medication-related deaths, 17 percent were suicides.

The report's data came from death certificates, which aren't always clear on whether a death was a suicide or a tragic attempt at getting high. But it does seem like most serious painkiller overdoses were accidental, said Dr. Rich Zane, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The study's findings are no surprise, he added. "The results are consistent with what we experience" in ERs, he said, adding that the statistics no doubt have gotten worse since 2010.

Some experts believe these deaths will level off. "Right now, there's a general belief that because these are pharmaceutical drugs, they're safer than street drugs like heroin," said Don Des Jarlais, director of the chemical dependency institute at New York City's Beth Israel Medical Center.

"But at some point, people using these drugs are going to become more aware of the dangers," he said.

Frieden said the data show a need for more prescription drug monitoring programs at the state level, and more laws shutting down "pill mills" — doctor offices and pharmacies that over-prescribe addictive medicines.

Last month, a federal panel of drug safety specialists recommended that Vicodin and dozens of other medicines be subjected to the same restrictions as other narcotic drugs like oxycodone and morphine. Meanwhile, more and more hospitals have been establishing tougher restrictions on painkiller prescriptions and refills.

One example: The University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora is considering a rule that would ban emergency doctors from prescribing more medicine for patients who say they lost their pain meds, Zane said.

[MrEthiopian]

Much of our current problems can be directly traced to the pain mills, doctors offices that only solve your problem with pain medication, getting you hooked on opiates and then before you know it your life is taken over by pain medicine. About three yeas back I was in an accident and my GP sent me to what I thought was a reputable pain specialist (PainCare - PainMD.com) I thought it was physical therapy, to my surprise it was noting of the sort. Day one I was prescribed one hundred and fifty (150) percocet 10/325 , yes this gets rid of the pain, but in its place is something far more dangerous. When the state and government look at this problem, they should also be looking at medical business that opened offices in record numbers around the time when this epidemic started, because what they would find is that its a problem that they created and licensed, the pain mills like PainCare that quad book every appointment so you need to wait 2 hours for every appointment and that appointment lasts for under 10 minuets,is a farce at best. What can a doctor diagnose in under 10 minutes, its all a scam, they get you hooked on opiates and then your too scared that they might cut you off, so people never complain.

I quit opiates and chose another route in life, now I can tell the truth and want the world to understand what the problem is. The problem was created by these pain mills like (PainCare- PainMD.com) that are responsible for getting thousands upon thousands hooked on opiates under the guise that they are doing the community a service when in actuality they are no better then the crack dealer on the corner pushing his poison.

Want to understand more about this problem? then contact me at mrethiopian(at)gmail.com

[q.charles132]

A good way to slow this stuff way down is to legalise marijuana for adult use and medicinal use nation wide.More people are going to gravitate to using marijuana vesus pain pills,heroin,meth and cocaine etc,thats a fact.Country's that have legalised it already with latin america preparing to do so as well have all had the exact same positive results from doing so.Significant drops in drug related crimes and significant drops in the numbers of teens using it as well plus there's the treamenous amount of revenuse to be made from it which would out do both all revenuses from alll alcahol and tobaco products combined and then some.Of course this problem is never going to go away completely like heroin,meth and coke but this would put aa very huge dent in the selling of them to abusers/addicts and would eliminate the cartels as far as marijuana is concerned which would be a good thing

[collie61]

Wow, two comments. What an interesting article. Not.

[sobobx]

And yet marijuana is still the "evil weed."

[MTPennies]

only until the pharmaceutical companies figure out how to put it in pill form - remember how they tried to convince us 'medicinal herbal remedies' were no good for us... until they all started producing them, then they were fine

[titansurfer7]

Why couldn't Rush Limpballs be one of them.