Sales of the most popular pain medications soared once again. Drug Enforcement Administration figures show dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan. It's said that this push to help relieve the pain of many Americans, is spawning a serious addiction. How are we going to deal with this? FDA and our government is allowing these medications to be prescribed like candy. Certainly, there has to be an alternative to it after weeks of being on any type of oxycodone medication.
With distribution of hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin, Norco and Lortab, is rising in Virginia, the original epicenter of the painkiller epidemic, as well as across the Midwest. No one finds this alarming? DEA and FDA have no stepped in and taken control of this?
Even more disturbing, the rise of the sales have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other states. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the death toll is rising. Yet, there still is no strict regulation being brought down by the Obama administration... Gee, what a surprise. He seems a bit to busy trying to get re-elected then helping anyone.
If you remember the early 80s when the AIDS epidemic began, Reagan was asked to step in and get a grasp on it before it got out of control. He waited and only until his good friend Rock Hudson died, did he begin to do anything about it. This was only because of Nancy pushing him to do it too.
In 2010 alone, 69 tons of pure Oxycodone and 42 tons of pure Hydrocodone were served by your local neighborhood pharmacies. Looks like they are competing with the amount of cocaine and heroin these days... Those figures are direct from the DEA themselves, who's own data records track 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. That's not alarming at all, is it?
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. Tennessee has very relaxed monitoring, just like Florida, so those looking to abuse and doctor shop, do so in Tennessee from neighboring states. This is proven data from Tennessee's own Bureau of Investigation.
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. So perhaps, we need to change this huh Obama?
