Pubdate: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 Source: Star-Banner, The (Ocala, FL) Copyright: 2009 The Star-Banner Contact: http://www.starbanner.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1533 PRESCRIPTION FOR ABUSE Florida's medical examiners recently released another report that shows another annual increase in the number of prescription-drug overdose deaths. The report concluded that prescription medicines caused more deaths in 2008 than illicit drugs - again. The medical examiners also reported sharp increases in deaths caused by prescription tranquilizers and painkillers, such as Oxycodone and hydrocodone. The results of the year-end report weren't surprising. Since the middle of last year, physicians, pharmacists and law enforcement officials have warned that a near-epidemic of deadly prescription-medicine abuse was continuing. In 2005, the Medical Examiners Commission began reporting the drugs discovered in bodies subject to autopsies. The percentage of decedents with at least one drug in their bodies has increased each year - to 53 percent last year. "The vast majority" (4,924) of the 8,556 drug-related deaths studied last year by the state's medical examiners involved the presence of more than one drug, according to the 2008 report. The presence of at least one prescription drug caused the death of 2,184 people last year, in the opinion of medical examiners. To put the scale of those numbers in perspective, consider: There were 2,983 deaths on Florida's roads last year; 1,169 of those fatalities were alcohol-related. Prescription drugs caused more deaths than alcohol-related crashes in Florida. In addition to reporting the drugs found during autopsies, the medical examiners determine how many deaths are directly caused by drugs. The drugs found most frequently in decedents were alcohol (4,070 cases), sedatives classified as benzodiazepines (3,229), cocaine (1,791) and oxycodone (1,574). Of particular concern: Death-related occurrences of both benzodiazepines and oxycodone were up by more than 20 percent in 2008 compared with 2007. The drugs that caused the most deaths in Florida: oxycodone (941), benzodiazepines (929), methadone (693), cocaine (648), alcohol (489), morphine (300), hydrocodone (270). Painkillers and sedatives are essential to countless patients, so any efforts to control their prescription, sale and use must be carefully calibrated. Ideally, a broad coalition of doctors, pharmacists, regulators and law enforcement officials would create model monitoring programs. Unfortunately, the participants in the entire system lag behind the trends. This year, the Legislature finally passed a law, the lead sponsor of which was state Rep. Kurt Kelly, R-Ocala, that calls for creating an electronic database to monitor the prescription and sale of certain painkillers and tranquilizers. The database should help investigators track the worst offenders once it is operational next year, but even proponents of the law concede it was watered down. Other initiatives are likely to be necessary because the personal and societal problems associated with the misuse of prescription drugs aren't getting better. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake