Prescription Drug Abuse in Los Angeles

February 26,2013

Designed to alleviate pain, prescription pain killers were never meant for self-medication or severe addiction. Yet it didn't take long for people to realize their potential as an abusive substance...

Over a decade ago, the drug scene opened up to a new scourge that many did not anticipate would take the population by storm. Designed to alleviate pain, prescription pain killers were never meant for self-medication or severe addiction. Yet it didn't take long for people to realize their potential as an abusive substance.

Pills such as Oxycontin, Vicodin and Percocet quickly became popular all over the United States, Los Angeles being a city that witnessed a plague-like wave of drug abuse. Similar to many other cities, the alarming rate of prescription pill overdose in L.A. has many worried. Nationally, opioid painkiller related deaths rose from nearly 3,000 in 1997 to a crippling 11,499 just ten years later. Tallied up, this made painkiller-related deaths far more deadly than heroin and cocaine combined.

In Los Angeles County (LAC) drug overdose is the third leading cause of death. The problem was uncovered like a nest of roaches when it was realized that over 14 million prescriptions for opioids were issued in 2011 alone. The staggering statistics continue when considering that a survey found over 379,000 people reported misusing any form of prescription medication in the past year.

It came as no surprise that as popularity for abusing prescription pills rose, so did the number of people entering rehab for treatment on prescription pill dependency. In just a five year span, the number of rehabilitation admittances for prescription pills alone more than doubled. Even worse was the number of opioid-dependent children born in the last couple of years.

So as the problem becomes incredibly imminent, local and government officials have struggled to get a handle on the problem. Even with the voluntary monitoring system, in which doctors may record prescriptions and look up patient prescription histories, addiction is still rising. As opioid dependence continues to grip more and more people, many are at a loss for what to do in the situation. Ultimately, it comes to the responsibility of the population. In L.A. and every other city in the country, it is detrimental that communities do as much as possible to keep these drugs off of the streets and out of home.

For those who need the prescriptions in order to manage long term chronic pain, it is important to keep medications in a secure location where children and other adults are not privy to seeing them or having access. Studies have shown that a rising number of people are gaining initial access to prescription pills from family members and friends who have been prescribed. Keeping a secure count on the number of pills in a bottle is a sure way of noticing quickly whether or not anyone is skimming from the surface and possibly fueling abuse.

Other ways the community can help diminish the plague of prescription pill addiction is to keep an eye out for any kind of activity that involves selling the drugs or abusing them. And of course, if there is a loved one or friend who is struggling with prescription pill addiction, it can be incredibly helpful to that individual and to the community if a helping hand is offered to get to treatment for the addiction. The sooner people receive help with battling their addiction and getting clean, the less people are out on the streets selling, buying and abusing these drugs. In this situation, knowledge is power and ignorance can be the downfall of many¦

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