Prescription Drug abuse

Here is a radio ad for Prescription Drug Abuse:

Prescription Drug Abuse commercial

A prescription drug abuse commercial that promotes Anti-prescription drug abuse

Presciption Drug Abuse Discussion

There actually isn’t a lot in the news talking about prescription drug abuse. I did find another article on another celebrity, Lindsey Lohan doing it:

http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/articles/2009/10/07/lindsay_lohan_abusing_prescription_drugs/

Read and Discuss!

Most prescription drugs come from Florida

I was watching a documentary on Hulu.com called Vanguard and it was all about prescription drug abuse and the difference between heroin and some of the drugs that the pharmaceutical. And the only differences that could be found between the two is that prescription narcotics are easier to get and that they are safer alternative because you never know what someone might put in street drugs like heroin. This documentary followed around an addict on his daily routine. All of it took place in Florida where the prescription drug laws are the most flexible and easily manipulable. They followed this guy around as he did what is called “doctor hoping” in florida. That means that you start out with four or five appointment for pain doctors, stager the appointments throughout the day, and by the end of the day you will have, depending on how much you can sell your level of pain, more pain killers than anyone suffering through chemotherapy would need in a year.

The scam is that the owners of the pain centers have the pharmacies in the offices where they practice their treatments. The larger the quantity of pills that they can give you the more money that they make. And since the owners of the clinics know how easy it is to manipulate the system in the state of Florida they make out like legal drug dealers. The way the owners of the pain centers write out the prescriptions is that they will take a doctor, who has retired from practicing but can still write prescriptions, and they give that doctor a nice easy welling paying job writing scripts for percocet, oxycodone and xanax.

Its an epidemic that has effected all states not just florida. For example, one of the ways to tell if the pain center that you are going to is a “good one” is by looking at the different license plates from different states in the cars in the parking lot. The documentary mentioned that if you found a diverse set of plates then you have found a good place to score.

The title of the documentary was called “The Oxycodone Express” and explained how the airlines are being used to ship these drugs all over the country legally and without question by people who travel to Florida and “doctor hope.”

Heath Ledger’s Death

It’s funny because when I went looking for something to talk about for prescription drug abuse, I didn’t think of Heath Ledger. The man did a great Joker btw in The Dark Knight. if you haven’t watched it yet, you should. Anyways, what does Heath Ledger have to do with this? Well that’s how he died. Here’s a piece of an article from CNN on the incident:

“Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine,” the office said in a short statement.

“We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications.”

Hydrocodone and oxycodone are painkillers. Diazepam is an anti-anxiety drug commonly sold under the brand name Valium; alprazolam is also an anti-anxiety drug sold under such names as Xanax. Temazepam, sold under such names as Restoril and Euhypnos, is a sleeping agent. Doxylamine, an antihistamine, can be obtained over the counter as a sleep aid.”

This surprised me! Because common sense tells you not to take a lot of different medications at one time, Heath Ledger didn’t think of the consequences. It is said that he had sleeping problems due to his heavy preparations of roles for films like The Dark Knight. It it another unfortunate example of prescription drug abuse and even though these drugs are suppose to help you, too much of something is never good. In my opinion, I believe it was really his own fault for ODing on the drugs. I mean, the warning labels are plastered all over the bottles and the Doctors tell you straight forward that they’re are side effects or you shouldn’t go chugging a million of these pills at the same time. What’s your opinion?

More on Prescription Drug Abuse.

Another celeb who died recently to this was DJ AM. He was also a recovering addict. But apparently, began taking Xanax and other prescription drugs that help him with his anxiety on planes. Since he had to travel alot, he would take these drugs frequently. He slowly went back into his drug addiction, which resulted in his death. A previous comment made by Kanyin in the last post about MJ’s death brings up a good point on how the mind can effect the body and what drugs can do to motivate you to try it again because of that “good feeling”. It is unfortunate that he worked so hard to break his strong addiction just to fall back into it.

Also, this isn’t really recent but another drug abuser who unfortunately ODed that I would like to mention, the comedian Mitch Hedberg was a victim to his drug addiction. Probably one of the funniest comedians I’ve ever heard. Mitch Hedberg was a known drug user. He also had a bad case of stage fright, which I think he also used the drugs to calm him down. He died of speedballing heroin and cocaine, which is pretty lethal. It’s crazy how drugs can have a powerful effect on people and make them continue using them, and the user most likely knowing the consequences of their actions.

Prescription drug Abuse…….What do you think?

I was just thinking about  Micheal Jackson right now and my comm421 group project topic came to mind. hmmmmmmm…………… prescription drug abuse! Wow! that’s huge right? i mean why will you get a doctor to prescribe your medication for a particular illness and you go ahead and abuse it not followig doctors direction? WHY?then i ask myself what do you think about Micheal being killed with overdosed propofol……………..yeah we all know it was prescribed by his doctor who was also the one giving him this meds but why would he abuse it? now this gets me really thinking  about why people really abuse these drugs? are there reasons, but we dont know about them?. I mean i dont know either or maybe someone who knows why should tell me.