• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Substance Abuse Increases ; Rich Buy Prescription Drugs, Poor Use Meth or Heroin, Report Says

Posted on: Wednesday, 27 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Coloradans with money or health insurance are abusing painkillers and other prescription drugs like never before, while the state's poor continue to opt for heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamines.

Some 15 million Americans abuse painkillers, depressants or stimulants, and one in 10 teens has abused a prescription drug, says a new report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

The number of Americans abusing prescription drugs tripled between 1990 and 2003, it says.

In Colorado, there has been "a dramatic increase" in prescription- drug abuse, though probably not as rapid as along the East Coast, said Eric Innis, director of adult outpatient services at Addiction Research and Treatment Services at the University of Colorado.

Nationwide, abuse of synthetic opiates among teens is up 542 percent from 1990, said former U.S. Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano, founder of the center that did the national study. "Our nation is in the throes of an epidemic of controlled prescription drug abuse and addiction."

Abuse of controlled prescription drugs by Americans in 2003 exceeded that of cocaine, hallucinogens, inhalants and heroin combined.

That's probably true in Colorado, too, say experts here, though alcohol and cocaine lead prescription drugs as causes for hospitalization.

In metro Denver last year, a half-dozen hospitals reported that 767 people were brought to the emergency room because of abuse of prescription drugs, according to the state Department of Human Services. A decade before, those numbers would have been in the dozens, not the hundreds, say emergency-room staffers.

Still, metro Denver hospitals report that alcohol is the top culprit, followed by cocaine, said Janet Wood, director of alcohol and drug abuse for the Department of Human Services. Last year, more than 2,000 people needed emergency services for alcohol abuse at the six hospitals, while more than 1,500 were there for cocaine abuse.

Prescription drugs - antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs and painkillers - were third. Illegal opiates such as heroin were fourth and methamphetamines fifth.

The painkiller Oxycontin sometimes is called "Hillbilly Heroin" because it's a favorite among the rural populations in West Virginia and Kentucky.

Here, it's favored by suburban teens who get it from their parents' medicine cabinets or over the Internet at about $6 a tablet.

A previous look at drug trends in Colorado found that emergency- room visits for opiate prescription drugs more than doubled between 1994 and 2000.

It's tripled since then, said Mick Kirby, executive director of Arapahoe House, metro Denver's largest provider of treatment for drug abusers.

There are plenty of young people in Colorado who "take whatever they and their friends have on hand, whether it's been stolen from physicians or bartered among friends," Kirby said. "(The drugs are) very dangerous. When mixed with other drugs or alcohol, they can be lethal."

The aim of treatment isn't just to get abusers off their acute desire for the drug, but to build a whole new support system and set of friends for when they get out, Kirby said. "We need to build a whole new village" for each recovering addict.

State lawmakers this year passed a law to track prescription drugs electronically to see if patients are shopping around to get multiple refills of their medications from doctors or pharmacies.

Still, "For anybody with money, it's very easy to buy these drugs over the Internet," said Tom Brewster, director of ARTS at the CU School of Medicine.

In Colorado, urban low-income teens choose methamphetamines, heroin and marijuana, addiction experts say.

Urban Peaks serves runaways and other troubled youth in Denver.

"Our kids are still much more involved in illegal drug use," Jerene Peterson, executive director of Urban Peaks, said. "A lot of our kids don't have insurance or access to prescription drugs unless we provide it for them. And we monitor that pretty closely."

Prescription opiates "tend to be more of a problem with the more affluent parts of the population," said Dr. Jonathan Ritvo, medical director of inpatient addiction services at Denver Health. "These drugs aren't cheap."

Addiction can grab hold in just three weeks of daily use, even if the original reason was legitimate - say, in connection with a sports injury.

Ritvo recalls a middle-aged woman, who was trembling, anxious, agitated and feeling miserable, telling him she had a bad flu.

She'd been abusing prescription drugs for two years, but had gone without them for 48 hours - the longest she'd been without them in those two years.

"Chills, muscle aches, diarrhea, dilated pupils, goose flesh . . . " - the symptoms were classic for either heroin abuse or prescription drug abuse, Ritvo said.

He gave her a promising new drug called Suboxone, a mild opiate. In 45 minutes, she was feeling better.

The problem is that Suboxone can cost $10 a day, and the chance of one treatment cycle ending the addiction is less than 2 percent.

INFOBOX

Denver-area drug toll

Number of patients seeking emergency treatment for substance abuse at six metro-area hospitals in 2004:

* 2,000: alcohol abuse

* 1,500: cocaine abuse

* 767: prescription drugs (antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs and painkillers)

* 700: Illegal opiates such as heroin

* 475: methamphetamine

Source: Colorado Department Of Human Services

Source: Rocky Mountain News

More News in this Category