In Ohio, painkillers are now the leading cause of accidental deaths, surpassing the number of deaths due to car accidents every year. The statistics are frightening with invididuals even in high school becoming addicted to prescription painkillers and as a result dying from them. The drug that is taking the greatest hold on individual's lives is OxyContin, an extremely powerful painkiller that should be hard to get, but as it turns out, really isn't that hard. In some cases, addicts only have to travel next door, to their local elderly drug dealer with prescriptions to this drug, to get their fix. Some of the elderly selling these drugs are over the age of 70 and are using the money they make to supplement their social security checks. It is a sad case when your local drug dealer isn't someone to be feared, but someone you should look up to. In Ohio alone, more people died in 2008 and 2009 from prescription painkiller overdoses than died in the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. In Portsmouth, Ohio, nestled in the Appalachian's, nearly 1 in 10 newborns tested positive for drugs. There seems to be no end in sight as local clinics and doctors dispense the drugs and also, your local elderly folk. The situation is now killing more than heroin in the 1970's and crack in the 1980's combined. Yet the biggest problem being faced is the that these drugs are legal.
People are looking to place the blame somewhere, yet are increasingly stymied by the fact that these drugs are legal and to go after "drug dealers" is to go after someone with a legitimate prescription for these drugs. Are the doctor's to blame? What about the pharmaceutical companies? The government maybe? It is a more difficult situation than any illegal drug because they are so readily available. The blame therefore, cannot be wholly placed on one sector without another accepting part of the blame. It is pretty well known that to try and fight the pharmaceutical industry would be a losing battle, mostly because they have billions in revenue to fight any lawsuit and their lobbyist's hands run deep in Washington D.C. making sure that the drugs they are pushing remain legal and available to the widest possible demographic. Still, you would hope that they would maintain some moral perspective of what they are doing and make some efforts to reduce the effects of the widespread dispersion of this drug. I am not saying that OxyContin or any other prescription painkiller should be removed from the market. In some cases, they provide excellent pain remediation for those that really need it. However, there needs to be more limitations placed on its use, keeping it reserved for those with the most excrutiating pain, and there also needs to be a limit placed on the length of time it can be used for along with a plan to wean the patient off the drug.
This is where the FDA should step in, especially in light of the increase in addictions and accidental deaths as a result of the powerful painkillers. Doctors need to be held liable for their often indescriminate use of the drug for "pain management". The painkiller will not cure anything, it should only be used in the most dire cases and only temporarily while a patient recovers from an injury. Some doctors (not all by any means) seem to use the drug as a cure-all, an easy prescription to write to alleviate pain. Many people probably don't need a painkiller as strong as OxyContin, yet they are prescribed it due to their supposed "increase in pain". The doctors who do prescribe it, should also keep better track of the number of pills prescribed, and the length of time it should take a patient to go through the pills. If the pills prescribed to a patient are supposed to last a month and the patient returns in two weeks, they should not recieve another prescription. All in all, the problem needs to be addressed from many different angles, from restrictions from the FDA, to pharmaceutical companies giving doctors bonuses, to doctors themselves prescribing the drugs, to more education for the patients recieving the drugs. It will not be an easy problem to solve as this drug is legal and currently seems to have free reign.
Perhaps the most effective method to reduce the number of accidental deaths is to limit the prescriptions to those that actually have a need for it. OxyContin is one of the most powerful painkillers on the market. Thus, it should be reserved to those that have the most need for it, i.e. those suffering from cancer, major surgery, or a horrendous accident. Mild shoulder pain or back pain should not be treated with this drug, but then again, that is my opinion. More effort needs to be placed into looking at a patient's history, their possibility of drug addiction, and the actual cause of the pain that they need the painkillers for. I guarantee that if you looked at all the people with prescriptions to this drug, you would be able to list 75% of them as ineligible to recieve it. However, the rampage of OxyContin goes on, sure to take the lives of many more individuals, young and old, unless major efforts are taken to address the underlying issues. For those out there who knows someone addicted to these drugs, get them help. Often times, the people addicted are not able to help themselves because the drug takes too strong a hold of them and literally takes away their life. It will never be any easy task, but lets make the effort with those we know to help them. Get them help, don't let them waste their life away on these painkillers.
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