It’s almost become a daily occurrence. A celebrity dies from a drug overdose and teens pop pills like they exchange cigarettes. Prescription pill abuse has become commonplace with an estimated seven million Americans abusing prescription drugs. That is more than the numbers of people abusing illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
Part of the reason is availability. According to a report, the use of psychotherapeutic drugs, such as antidepressants, grew 84 percent from 1999 to 2004.
Clinical guidelines published in the Journal of Pain find that one in four Americans has chronic pain. The use of prescription painkillers grew more than 300 percent between 1995 and 2005.
Now the American Pain Society is urging random urine drug screening to confirm that patients are taking prescription drugs as they have been prescribed. A toxicology services company, University Services, finds that among more than 350,000 cases, about 61 percent are not following their prescriptions.
Besides contributing to 3.8 billion in lost work hours each year, patients who do work may not really be all there. Many are unaware of unanticipated side effects which can include an overdose from mixing drugs, compromised workplace safety and suicides.
Clinicians say doing a urine drug screening finds not just drugs that people are on but drugs they are supposed to take but are not taking. The issue of monitoring drug use will be discussed next month in Chicago at an annual Pain and Substance Abuse Forum.
