PhRMA, others act as Rx drug abuse grows

The Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America and six otherorganizations have joined with the National Institute on Drug Abuse in a new campaign against prescription drug abuse and misuse. In 1999, such practices are estimated to have affected up to 4 million people aged over 12, half of whom said they were abusing medications for the first time, and this shows that the abuse is growing, says the NIDA.

The government's National Household Survey on Drug Abuse notes that, in 1999, 1.6 million people said they had used prescription drugs such as painkillers and stimulants for non-medical uses, compared with under 500,000 a year in the late 1980s, and a study published recently in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association estimated that such drug abuse and misuse costs the US health system $177 billion a year.

The problem is particularly acute among seniors, up to 17% of whom could be affected, and women, who are two to three times more likely to be prescribed drugs for depression and thus are more likely to misuse and abuse narcotics and anxiolytics. There has also been a 37% rise in emergency room admissions for teenagers and adolescents following overdoses of painkillers such as Purdue Pharma's OxyContin (oxycodone HCl).