Prescription deaths mount in Tennessee: 1,600 in 3 years November 1, 2010 - wbir.com
Prescription drugs killed more than 1,600 Tennesseans over a three-year period, according to yet-to-be-released research conducted by the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy.
The school is among a growing number of stakeholders joining efforts to understand and combat the state's burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem. Prescription drug abuse is the fastest-growing drug problem in the nation. The number of nonmedical users age 12 and older was 5.3 million in 2009, according to the Office on Drug Control Policy, up 20 percent from 2002. Medications are now the second most abused drug, after marijuana. Tennessee consistently ranks as one of the most medicated states in the country.
Todd Bess, assistant dean of the UT College of Pharmacy, said he has been working with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the state medical examiner's office to study substance-associated deaths in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Such deaths grew from 663 in 2006 to 776 in 2008 - more than two a day.
"You can see that we've got a trend going up in the state," said Bess, who expects to conclude the research next month.
Bess and his team determined that, over the three-year period, prescription drugs played a part in 1,630, or 77 percent, of the deaths. Bess noted that only 8 percent of the deaths were documented suicides and that the vast majority were accidental. Prescription drugs were taken in combination with alcohol, illegal drugs or both in 29 percent of the cases.
"I hope that people learn to respect these drugs and that they can harm you," Bess said.
Bess said he has been interested in drug deaths for quite some time and wants the College of Pharmacy to join the broader medical community in an effort to understand the problem better and work with law enforcement to curtail the over-prescribing of drugs and their abuse.
"The good doctors want to know what to do because they don't want this problem in their practice," said Elizabeth Sherrod, a senior special agent with the Tennessee Valley Authority Office of Inspector General and head of the Tennessee Drug Diversion Task Force. "And pharmacists don't want it in their stores."
Sherrod said the creation of a state-controlled substance database in 2002 has helped address the problem, although she wishes law enforcement had more access to it. The number of controlled substance prescriptions was 15.2 million in 2009, down from 17 million in 2007. But those figures are less reassuring than they would be if drug-related deaths weren't on the rise.
Less stigma attached
Metro Nashville police detective Michael Donaldson said the abuse of prescription drugs has increased 55 percent to 60 percent in Davidson County since 2007 because of factors such as the ease of obtaining the drugs, the lack of stigmas associated with them, a perception that they are safer than illicit drugs and the fact that it is harder to prosecute prescription drug cases since the substances themselves are not inherently illegal.
"The possession of cocaine is in and of itself a crime. Not so with Lortab," said Donaldson, referring to one of the trademark names for the narcotic hydro codone, the most widely abused prescription drug in Nashville. "Street-level drugs are on the decline."
Instead, users are obtaining drugs by stealing from friends and family members with prescriptions, by doctor shopping or by visiting disreputable pain clinics known as "pill mills" in and out of state.
"The last couple years, we've started more and more investigations into distribution," said Mike Stanfill, assistant special agent in charge at the Nashville office of the Drug Enforcement Administration. "We could do nothing but pill cases if that's all we chose to do."
Donaldson said users can mix drug "cocktails" to mimic the effects of illegal drugs. The combination of hydrocodone, anti-anxiety drug alprazolam (Xanax), and muscle relaxant carisoprodol (Soma) mimics the effects of heroin and is a particularly growing concern.
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