Drug czar unveils plan to attack prescription drug abuse

WASHINGTON
— The Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled a plan to fight
prescription drug abuse, noting that accidental overdose deaths now
exceed those of the crack epidemic of the 1980s and black tar heroin in
the 1970s combined.

The program includes boosting awareness among
patients and health care providers, cracking down on pill mills and
“doctor shopping,” and requiring drug manufacturers to develop
education programs for doctors as well as patients.

Gil Kerlikowske, the White House director
of national drug-control policy, warned that accidental drug overdoses
are now the leading cause of accidental death in 17 states and
represent an “unbelievably complex problem.”

“The toll our nation’s prescription drug-abuse
epidemic has taken in communities nationwide is devastating,” he said.
“We share a responsibility to protect our communities from the damage
done by prescription drug abuse. This plan will build upon our already
unprecedented efforts to coordinate a national response to this public
health crisis by addressing the threat at the federal, state and local
level.”

The plan calls on every state to develop a
prescription drug-monitoring program and encourages them to share the
information with other states. Thirty-five states already have such
monitoring programs in place, Kerlikowske said.

It recommends convenient ways to remove unused
medications from the home. Kerlikowske noted that seven out of 10
prescription drug abusers obtained their drugs from friends or
relatives.

The plan also calls for the drug control policy office and the Drug Enforcement Administration
to step up enforcement by targeting training to states with the highest
need. Law enforcement agencies and the lawmakers who represent them
have long complained that clinics where pain medication often is
dispensed without prescriptions, or “pill mills,” contribute heavily to
the prescription drug epidemic.

Kerlikowske vowed to “take action against these rogue pain clinics.”

He said his office would ask Congress for an increase in funding for drug prevention of $123 million and for treatment of $99 million
for 2012, to train primary health care providers to intervene in
emerging cases of drug abuse and to expand and improve specialty care
for addiction.

The announcement came on the heels of Kerlikowske’s
testimony last week before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee
about the destructive underground prescription-drug network that weaves
its way up from Florida’s pain clinics to Kentucky’s Appalachian mountain communities. Kerlikowske, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Florida Gov. Rick Scott — whose states anchor each end of what’s known as the “pill mill
pipeline” — stressed that sales and abuse of prescription drugs,
especially oxycodone, had grown to epic levels.

Ninety-eight of the top 100 doctors in the country dispensing oxycodone — the generic form of OxyContin — are in Florida, mostly in Miami, Tampa and Orlando, Scott said.

According to a study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
there was a fourfold increase nationally in treatment admissions for
prescription pain-pill abuse during the past decade. The increase spans
every age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, employment level and
region.

The study also shows a tripling of pain pill abuse
among patients who needed treatment for dependence on opioids —
prescription narcotics.

“Today we are making an unprecedented commitment to combat the growing problem of prescription drug abuse, Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday in a statement. “The government as well as parents,
patients, health care providers and manufacturers all play a role in
preventing abuse. This plan will save lives, and it will substantially
lessen the burden this epidemic takes on our families, communities and
workforce.”

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