Cedarville Magazine, Fall 2013

Cedarville Magazine | 17 FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER, AUTOMOBILE-RELATED INCIDENTS WERE THE LEADING CAUSE OF ACCIDENTAL DEATHS IN THE UNITED STATES, OUTPACING ALL FOLLOWERS BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS. THAT ALL CHANGED IN 2007, WHEN DEATHS FROM AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENTS WERE SURPASSED, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY, BY DRUG OVERDOSE — PRIMARILY PRESCRIPTION DRUGS (NAMELY NARCOTIC PAIN KILLERS). During the most recent decade, many states, like my home state of Ohio, have experienced increases in prescription drug-related deaths by more than 400 percent. In 2010, the number of patient visits to U.S. emergency rooms involving the nonmedical use of prescription drugs was more than 1.3 million. That same year, more than 38,000 Americans died from drug overdose (more than 100 each day). The landscape of drug use and abuse has rapidly shifted. Whereas the street-drugs- of-choice were once heroin and cocaine, more readily available prescription drugs — especially those used for the treatment of severe pain, such as morphine, oxycodone, and hydrocodone — have become preferred and, thanks to supply and demand, also more costly. Heroin has become the “back-up” drug because prescription drugs are often less expensive and easier to obtain. Prescription drugs are also preferred because they are, theoretically, more “reliable” in terms of producing the desired effects. While this is likely true when compared to street drugs from unknown sources, increased demand for prescription drugs has resulted in an underground manufacturing and distribution market. A large supply of counterfeit “prescription drugs” is now being sold on the streets. To put the nature of this epidemic into some perspective, present death rates from prescription drug abuse are more than four times higher than the “black tar” heroin epidemic of the 1970s and more than three times higher than the peak of the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1990s. The annual THE EPIDEMIC IN YOUR MEDICINE CHEST by Jeffrey Lewis