Overdose Epidemic: Not Just for Celebrities
Michael Jackson’s death spotlights a growing problem with prescription drugs.
Posted July 29, 2009
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience
News of Michael Jackson’s death and the possible link to prescription drugs is the latest high-profile example of a growing national problem, as misuse of pharmaceuticals has risen at an alarming rate, touching the lives not just of celebrities but of a large number of non-celebrities, including teenagers.
The abuse of certain prescription drugs nearly doubled from 2000 to 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Some health officials are calling the rise in the misuse of prescription drugs an epidemic.
A 2005 report by Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) documented the problem. “This report revealed that our nation is in the throes of a growing epidemic of controlled prescription drug abuse involving opioids like OxyContin and Vicodin, depressants like Valium and Xanax, and stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall,” Joseph A. Califano, Jr. CASA Chairman and President, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007.
Just last year advocacy group Drug Policy Alliance stated, “There is an overdose epidemic across the country.”
In the Jackson case, Dr. Conrad Murray is said to have given the pop star a powerful sedative called propofol through an intravenous drip, which reportedly may have contributed to his death.
Doctors say prescription drugs have a legit factor that illegal drugs don’t. “They are viewed as being FDA-approved and safe. And that is not true,” said Dr. Lewis Nelson of the NYU Langone Medical Center. “There’s a misperception that because it’s a prescription drug it’s okay.”
via Overdose Epidemic: Not Just for Celebrities – US News and World Report.
Advanced OraPoint Oral Flu;id Drug Screening Technology
www.orapoint.com
