Desperation Leads to Desperate Measures to Get Prescription Pain Pills

I recently read an article in a Chicago paper about a "polite…white-collar professional" who had figured out he could get prescription drugs by going to open houses and garage sales and asking to use the bathroom. Naive homeowner after naive homeowner said, "Okey dokey" to the stranger, who then scoured their medicine cabinets for Vicodin and other opiates and related drugs.

He relates how he felt really low the day he stole Vicodin from a house where there was a wheelchair in the bedroom. That didn’t stop him from running to the pharmacy to get the refill that was available. He had to be creative – his habit, at it’s worse, meant 120 pain pills a day. Hard to believe anyone could live through that kind of addiction!

Did you know that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that a whopping 82 percent of the misused prescription medication comes fromthe medicine cabinets of friends and family members?

Teens are more likely to overdose these days on prescription drugs than illegal drugs. Some communities are trying to get a handle on it. Operation Medicine Cabinet, an effort by the Broward Country Sheriff’s Department (and a nationwide law enforcement effirt) informs the public about the risk of leaving prescription drugs around that can easily be taken by teens – sometimes your teens, sometimes your teen’s friends. Imagine the liability if a friend of your teen downed a left over bottle of Vicodin sitting in your unlocked medicine cabinet? Yikes.

There are cases popping up like this – a teenager gives OxyContin to her teen friend, the friend dies, the DA charges the teen who handed over the Oxy.  It’s getting to be serious business. You can read that story here.

The war on drugs has been a dismal failure in my opinion. The focus on intradiction and punishment, with little put toward treatment and rehabiliation, means that demand stays high, regardless of law enforcement efforst. But it also ignores the fact that prescription drugs are becoming far more of a problem than illegal drugs. In Florida prescription drugs have killed 300% more people than illegal drugs.

The moral of the story is: don’t leave prescription drugs where teens can get them. Teens think they are "safer" because they are prescribed by doctors, yet in reality, many of these drugs are more potent than the illegal stuff.