Stemming the plague of prescription pill abuse

An epidemic of abuse has gripped the U.S., blurring the lines between prescription and recreational drugs. Every day, 40 Americans die from prescription painkiller abuse, and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdoses of opioid prescription drugs now kill more people in the U.S. than do overdoses of heroin and cocaine combined. Twelve million Americans admit to abusing pain medication in the past year. These addicts are our teenagers, our parents and our neighbors.

And the drugs of choice? They are lurking in your medicine cabinets and at teen gatherings called “pharm parties.” Prescription painkillers — Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin and many others — have replaced marijuana as the gateway to other addictive drugs, including heroin — but they can also literally be the end-all drug: In 2010, 75 Nassau residents died as a result of using prescription opiates, an average of more than one a week, and another 258 people had these opiates in their system when they died of other causes. According to the CDC, there are now four times as many deaths caused by prescription drug abuse each year as there were a decade ago — roughly the same increase as the number of prescriptions written for these powerful painkillers.

Since last June, six people, including an off-duty federal agent, have died on Long Island in robberies of pharmacies by addicts in search of painkillers. These tragedies have forced pharmacists to beef up security and led to the creation of the Nassau County Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse Prevention Task Force, comprising a range of experts in drug treatment and recovery, pharmaceuticals, mental health, social services and law enforcement. The task force makes recommendations to County Executive Ed Mangano as well as to the State Legislature.