Prescription Drug Abuse
On average, states with medical marijuana programs saw a substantial drop (24.8%) in opioid overdose fatalities. Full Story
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Sel
By adding a medication called +Naloxone to opiates, researchers managed to "remove" intoxication and addiction while retaining their pain relieving properties.
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Dey
University of Michigan researchers say that between 2000 and 2009 opiate use and dependency among pregnant women rose by almost 500% and the numbers of infants being born with neonatal abstinence syndrome rose by about 300%.
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Micah Taylor
Unless you really need strong pain relief, you’re probably better off without the opiate pain meds often prescribed after minor low-pain surgeries. In a recent Canadian study, about 10% of people given opiates they didn’t really need ended up addicted.
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CdePaz
Need pain control but not sure about taking more opiates? Well, Italian and American scientists are working on a solution and they say that manipulating the activity of one of the body’s endogenous chemicals may prove the key to non-addictive pain control medications in the future.
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Saynine
Rural Ohio struggling to cope with opiate abuse and the tragedies that accompany it.
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Mr. T in DC
Prescription medications supplied by the family medicine cabinet are often a teen’s introduction to hard drug abuse. Convincing people to safely dispose of these unused prescription medications is such a priority for Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller that he’s written a bill that proposes drop off points for outdated medications in every pharmacy in the state, hoping to supersede federal requirements that demand that a law officer be present to receive these types of medications.
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Aurelio.Asiain
About a million people a year visit hospital emergency rooms across the country after taking drugs like cocaine or heroin – and now, about a million people a year visit these same ERs after taking medications like Vicodin or OxyContin.
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Photo Credit: ThomasThomas
Research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows a clear link between the dosage of opiates prescribed and fatal overdose risk (in 2006, 14 000 Americans died from a prescription opiate overdose and roughly 100 000 had a non fatal overdose.)
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Photo Credit: ViaMoi
An expert in pain management from the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University says that millions of Americans are living in pain because doctors are afraid to prescribe sufficient pain killers.
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Photo Credit: Tiago Rïbeiro
OxyContin, a potent opiate and one of America’s most often abused prescription medications, may soon come to market in tamper resistant plastic coated tablets that are designed to prevent abuse.
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Photo Credit: Faeryboots
Microsoft is criticized for allowing illicit online pharmacies to advertise on its search engine pages.
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Opiate pain medications caused 33% more overdose fatalities in 2008 than in 2007 – Experts point to Florida laws that allow for the easy prescribing of these potent medications. The top 25 oxycodone prescribing doctors in America are all Floridians.
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Drugfree.org
While adolescent substance abuse, teen drinking and teen smoking have all been in steady decline, over the past 10 years, prescription drug abuse is still on the rise among teenagers 12 – 17 years of age. 60% of American teenagers will have experimented with painkillers before the age of 15 - often, with tragic consequences.
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Photo by James Gordon
Top US Army medical officials have raised concerns about possible pain killer abuse and addiction among troops insured in Iraq. Prescriptions for pain-relievers to injured US troops have surged from 30,000 a month to 50,000 since the Iraq war began.
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Photo: Emuishere Peliculas
A Columbia University study on online drug retailing shows how easy it is to buy controlled drugs without the need of a prescription.
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