Rx drug abuse soars to 'epidemic' level

July 07, 2005 4:54 PM EDT

WASHINGTON, Jul 07, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- More than 15 million Americans abuse controlled prescription drugs and the number of teens who do so has tripled in the past 10 years, a new study has concluded.

"Today more people are abusing controlled prescription drugs than the combined number who use cocaine, hallucinogens, amphetamines and heroin," Joseph A. Califano, president of the National Center on Addiction and Drug Abuse at Columbia University, said at a news conference Thursday.

"Controlled prescription drugs like Oxycontin, Valium and Ritalin are now the fourth-most-abused substances in America, behind only marijuana, alcohol and tobacco," he said. "Our nation is in the throes of an epidemic."

Particularly disturbing is "the incredible increase from 1992 to 2003 in the number of 12- to 17-year-olds abusing controlled prescription drugs," Califano said. "The explosion in the prescription of addictive opioids, depressants and stimulants has, for many children, made their parents' medicine cabinet a greater temptation and threat than illegal prescription-drug dealers."

More than 2 million teens -- nearly one in 10 -- abused at least one controlled prescription drug in 2003, Califano said. Overall, according to the center's study, the number of Americans who abuse such drugs grew from 7.8 million in 1992 to 15.1 million in 2003.

A major source of the increase comes from Web sites that "prescribe" the drugs to anyone with a credit card and Internet access.

"These vultures that call themselves 'Internet pharmacies' hide in the darkness of cyberspace ... then disappear only to return another day under a new name," said Beau Dietl, whose firm, Beau Dietl & Associates in New York City, studied the sites. Dietl said only 6 percent required a prescription, and almost none made an effort to screen out minors.

"Children think they are doing nothing wrong because they think they are not using heroine, cocaine or marijuana, they are just slipping this clean little pill," he said. The sites disguise sales under such descriptions as "beauty products," he added, urging credit-card companies to step up scrutiny of such usage.

Responding to the findings, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Thursday in a statement he will introduce a bill to increase regulation of Internet pharmacies, but added Internet sales are not the only problem.

"Parents need to lock their medicine cabinets, doctors need to better recognize drug-seeking behavior among their patients, and pharmacists need to take steps to ensure that prescriptions are valid," Biden said.

The study found 43 percent of physicians do not ask patients about prescription-drug abuse when compiling a health history; 33 percent do not regularly check with a patient's other or previous physicians before writing a prescription, and 47 percent report frequent pressure from patients to write prescriptions.

Nearly three-fourth of physicians responding said they had held back from writing prescriptions in the past year out of fear a patient would become addicted.

Over 28 percent of pharmacists do not regularly validate the prescribing physician's Drug Enforcement Administration number when dispensing controlled drugs, the study found. More than 26 percent "somewhat or very often" think a controlled medication they are dispensing will be abused or diverted, and 83 percent said they refused to dispense such drugs in the past year because of that concern.

In 2002, the study found, such medications were involved in 30 percent of drug-related emergency-room deaths.

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UPI intern Chetan Kulkarni contributed to this article.