[Vision2020] Narcotics = Good, Marijuana = Evil?

[Art Deco]

Painkiller sales spike, fueling addiction Overdose death toll from
opioids rising
Chris Hawley
Associated Press

NEW YORK – Sales of the nation’s two most popular prescription painkillers
have exploded in new parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis
shows, worrying experts who say the push to relieve patients’ suffering is
spawning an addiction epidemic.

>From New York’s Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M., Drug Enforcement
Administration figures show dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the
distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet and
Percodan. Some places saw sales increase sixteenfold.

Meanwhile, the distribution of hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin,
Norco and Lortab, is rising in Appalachia, the original epicenter of the
painkiller epidemic, as well as in the Midwest.

The increases have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy
robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other
states. Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and
hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the death
toll is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Nationwide, pharmacies received and ultimately dispensed the equivalent of
69 tons of pure oxycodone and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone in 2010, the last
year for which statistics are available. That’s enough to give 40 5-mg
Percocets and 24 5-mg Vicodins to every person in the United States. The
DEA data records shipments from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals,
practitioners and teaching institutions. The drugs are eventually dispensed
and sold to patients, but the DEA does not keep track of how much
individual patients receive.

The increase is partly due to the aging U.S. population with pain issues
and a greater willingness by doctors to treat pain, said Gregory Bunt,
medical director at New York’s Daytop Village chain of drug
treatment clinics.

Sales are also being driven by addiction, as users become physically
dependent on painkillers and begin “doctor shopping” to keep the
prescriptions coming, he said.

Opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone can release intense feelings of
well-being. Some abusers swallow the pills; others crush them, then smoke,
snort or inject the powder.

The AP analysis used drug data collected quarterly by the DEA’s Automation
of Reports and Consolidated Orders System. The DEA tracks shipments sent
from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals, practitioners and teaching
institutions and then compiles the data using three-digit ZIP codes.

The AP combined this data with census figures to determine effective sales
per capita.

A few ZIP codes that include military bases or Veterans Affairs hospitals
have seen large increases in painkiller use because of soldier patients
injured in the Middle East, law enforcement officials say. In addition,
small areas around St. Louis, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Newark, N.J.,
have seen their totals affected because mail-order pharmacies have shipping
centers there, said Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National
Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

In 2000, oxycodone sales were centered in coal-mining areas of West
Virginia and eastern Kentucky – places with high concentrations of people
with back problems and other chronic pain.

But by 2010, the strongest oxycodone sales had overtaken most of Tennessee
and Kentucky, stretching as far north as Columbus, Ohio and as far south as
Macon, Ga.

Per-capita oxycodone sales increased five- or six-fold in most of Tennessee
during the decade.

“We’ve got a problem. We’ve got to get a handle on it,” said Tommy Farmer,
a counterdrug official with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Many buyers began crossing into Tennessee to fill prescriptions after
border states began strengthening computer systems meant to monitor drug
sales, Farmer said.

In 2006, only 20 states had prescription drug monitoring programs aimed at
tracking patients. Now 40 do, but many aren’t linked together, so abusers
can simply go to another state when they’re flagged in one state’s system.
There is no federal monitoring of prescription drugs at the patient level.

In Florida, the AP analysis underscores the difficulty of the state’s
decade-long battle against “pill mills,” unscrupulous doctors who churn out
dozens of prescriptions a day.

In 2000, Florida’s oxycodone sales were centered around West Palm Beach. By
2010, oxycodone was flowing to nearly every part of the state.

While still not as high as in Appalachia or Florida, oxycodone sales also
increased dramatically in New York City and its suburbs. The borough of
Staten Island saw sales leap 1,200 percent.

The American Southwest has emerged as another hot spot.

Parts of New Mexico have seen tenfold increases in oxycodone sales per
capita and fivefold increases in hydrocodone. The state had the highest
rate of opioid painkiller overdoses in 2008, with 27 per
100,000 population.

Many parts of eastern California received only modest amounts of oxycodone
in 2010, but the increase from 2000 was dramatic – more than 500 percent
around Modesto and Stockton.

Many California addicts are switching from methamphetamine to prescription
pills, said John Harsany, medical director of Riverside County’s substance
abuse program.

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-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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