Despite warnings about borrowing medication prescribed to other people, past studies have demonstrated that many Americans say they have used someone else’s medication at least once in a given year. In low income, urban populations, this rate was stereotypically thought to be higher due to a number of factors, including a perceived lack of access to health care and higher rates of crime and drug abuse. However, a study led by Temple researchers has found the rates of using someone else’s medication among this population were about on par with the rest of the country. “The trend of borrowing or using someone...

If you want to know how people become addicted and why they keep using drugs, ask the people who are addicted.  Thirty-one of 75 patients hospitalized for opioid detoxification told University at Buffalo physicians they first got hooked on drugs legitimately prescribed for pain. Another 24 began with a friend’s left-over prescription pills or pilfered from a parent’s medicine cabinet. The remaining 20 patients said they got hooked on street drugs. However, 92 percent of the patients in the study said they eventually bought drugs off the street, primarily heroin, because it is less expensive and more effective than...

Content provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Pharmacologist Michael Klein, Ph.D., is director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Controlled Substance Staff. During more than 30 years of federal service, he has amassed extensive experience with issues related to drug regulation, abuse, misuse, and addiction. Prior to joining FDA 20 years ago, Dr. Klein worked as a senior scientist with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Q: What is misuse and abuse of prescription drugs? A: When a person takes a legal prescription medication for a purpose other than the reason it was prescribed, or when that person takes a...

Abuse of Suboxone, a drug used to treat addiction, is a growing concern among Vermont corrections officials. The Burlington Free Press reports that the drug, prescribed on an outpatient basis for addiction to heroin and prescription painkillers, such as oxycodone, is being diverted by the very people it was designed to help. People have tried to smuggle the drug into the state’s prisons in a variety of creative ways, including a ballpoint pen stuffed with powder from Suboxone tablets, and a poster decorated with children’s fingerprints that were sprinkled with Suboxone powder. Vermont Corrections Commissioner Andrew Pallito told the...

For The NHS must wise up to the “growing problem” of drug and alcohol misuse among older people, according to a new report published today by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The report, written by the Older People’s Substance Misuse Working Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, warns that not enough is being done to tackle substance misuse in our aging population – making them society’s “invisible addicts”. The report pulls together evidence to highlight the extent of the problem: - The number of older people in the UK population is increasing rapidly – between 2001 and 2031 there is...

As prescription drug abuse reaches epidemic proportions, a recent study reports disturbingly low monitoring rates for patients taking powerful prescription drugs. Only 8 percent of patients taking opioid pain medications are screened by their doctor. Fewer than half (49.8 percent) see their prescribing physician regularly. The study of practices in primary care settings was conducted by researchers at Yeshiva University in New York City and was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The revelation comes as the abuse of prescription medications surpasses the abuse of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines, and has been...

Following a 2010 report on health promotion, risk reduction and suicide prevention in the Army that cites prescription drug abuse as a growing issue, the Army is making changes to reduce the misuse of prescription pain medications. Prescription drug abuse in the military mirrors a growing trend in the country as a whole, but soldiers may have specific job-related reasons to start using prescription painkillers, which can lead to abuse, says Col. Paul Bliese, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Military Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. While young adults in the general population who abuse prescription...

Adolescents who misuse controlled medications (e.g., pain, stimulant, sleeping and antianxiety medications) for which they have a legitimate prescription may be more likely to abuse other substances and to sell, give or trade their controlled medications to other individuals, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.  According to background information in the article, U.S. children and teens have increasingly received prescriptions for controlled medications. “Despite the importance of controlled medications in treating childhood and adolescent...

How can we balance the risk of drug abuse with the suffering caused by untreated back pain? People living with serious back pain have to sort through a lot of mixed messages about opioid — or narcotic — painkillers. On the one hand, you’ve heard stories about the seeming epidemic of addiction to these drugs, like OxyContin, Percocet, and Vicodin. All those celebrities checking into rehab for painkiller addiction may give you the impression that the lure of these drugs is irresistible, that we’re all just a few pills away from addiction. But on the other hand, you might have heard that pain is chronically...