Americans seem to have a fixation with pain medicine. In some cases, it’s a fatal attraction.

In the past decade, drug deaths attributed to pain medication have skyrocketed.

Fatal overdoses involving opioid analgesics — typically prescribed drugs such as methadone, oxycodone or fentanyl — have more than tripled nationwide from 4,000 in 1999 to 13,800 in 2006, according to the National Vital Statistics System.

Such medications played a part in nearly 40 percent of all poisoning deaths in the United States in 2006, up from 20 percent in 1999. According to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention, about 38,400 drug-induced deaths were recorded in 2006, rivaling the number of fatalities from vehicle accidents, about 45,000.

Every time the Reality Tour drug education program is held in Westmoreland County, children and parents are asked to raise their hands if they are stockpiling prescription pain medicine in your medicine cabinet at home.

“Every (parent) in the room raises their hand,” said attorney Tom Plaitano, owner of a methadone clinic and a coordinator for the program, which has been held in the county about 30 times.

The reasons for the increases in deaths are as numerous as the drugs themselves. “There’s many fingers to point in this whole problem,” said Edward Krenzelok, director of the Pittsburgh Poison Center.

Among the factors, experts say are:

• a misconception that pain medicines are safe because they are prescribed.

• patients who “doctor shop” — go from doctor to doctor — to obtain pain medicines, or fake pain to get a prescription.

• patients who distribute or buy narcotics on the black market.

• the availability of the medications.

• doctors dispensing too many medications or writing prescriptions too readily. “Personally, I think they can be more judicious in their prescribing habits,” Krenzelok said.

Leonard J. Paulozzi, an expert in the field of drug deaths, said there has been a shift in how physicians treat pain.

“In the early 1990s or late 1980s, physicians began to look at how we were managing chronic pain and began to change attitude, to use opioids or opioid analgesics more,” he said. “The result, I think, is one factor in the increasing deaths. They (the drugs) are more widespread than they ever were.”

Doris Cope, director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Pain Medicine program, agreed, but said most physicians now try to dispense medicine prudently, though pain medicine sometimes falls subject to abuse. Within the past 10 years, Cope said, doctors have begun to more closely monitor for possible abuse.

“We also have other options that we didn’t have 20 years ago to treat pain,” Cope said, such as injections or “pain pumps,” which can only be given to the intended patient.

Many overdoses involve a combination of drugs. Acetaminophen, an over-the-counter pain treatment, often is involved, Krenzelok said.

In 2008, the Pittsburgh Poison Center took 106,555 calls from the 44 Pennsylvania counties its serves. Of those, 6,136 involved pain medicines; 730 involved acetaminophen and a narcotic, Krenzelok said.

Paul Cycak, chief deputy coroner, said many of the drug overdose deaths in Westmoreland County early this decade involved heroin alone. Then other drugs began to factor into the deaths.

“It’s usually the same things. It’s OxyContin, oxycodone, heroin, or a combination,” Cycak said. “I’m not sure if they’re being prescribed more or sold more, or if they’re getting them illegally more.”

In the first nine months of 2009, 41 people died from accidental drug overdoses in Westmoreland County; 14 were attributed to heroin, Cycak said.

Allegheny County Medical Examiner records list 237 accidental drug overdose deaths in 2008 and 224 in 2007. Through Oct. 5, the county recorded 115 drug overdoses. A breakdown of the drugs involved was not immediately available.

Tony Marcocci, a Westmoreland County detective with 24 years in drug enforcement, said most heroin addicts he now encounters became addicted through prescription pain medicines, noting that addicts often move from pain medicine to heroin, which is cheaper and helps to alleviate withdrawal symptoms.

“We live in a pain-free society,” he said. “We can’t experience any pain. We take a pill for it.”

When his methadone clinic near Greensburg opened three years ago, Plaitano said, most of the 150 clients started the path to addiction by using illegal drugs and progressing to heroin. Now, there are about 370 patients.

“What we’re seeing now is a trend: probably over 60 percent started off with prescription medication, either legally or illegally obtained,” Plaitano said.

He said he believes advertising can increase demand for prescribed painkillers.

“We want a pill. We’ve seen it on television,” Plaitano said.

One Response to “Rising Pain Pill Use Taking Deadly Toll”

1. 

   admin 29 December 2009 at 4:31 pm #

   I’m sorry I didn’t see your reply earlier, or I would have gotten back to you sooner. As a matter of fact I’m very much in favor or giving as much pain medication to those in pain as they need. i don’t remember coming out against opiate pain meds in genreal, but you should check your headlines about oxycontin is south Florida, they just convicted a doc of writing over 300,00 precriptions for opiate pills. I would encourage you to read this report from CASA, the Center for Addiction studies at Columbia Universioty in New York “You’ve Got Drugs!” IV:
   Prescription Drug Pushers on the Internet” go to http://www.casacolumbia.org/templates/publications_reports.aspx
   and you can read the report This really isn’t the issue though, the issue is that oldsters and youngsters have picked up on the feeling you can get from the pills and they are driving demand. Kids see it as their thing, and some folks who did have an initial pain issue, a broken leg, or a back problem, find that after the actual pain is gone, they just don’t want to stop; they like the feeling too much.

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