cannabisnews.com: Drug-Fighters Turn To Prescription Abuse





Drug-Fighters Turn To Prescription Abuse
Posted by CN Staff on March 17, 2004 at 21:48:40 PT
By Michael Janofsky
Source: New York Times 
Washington — After years in which marijuana, cocaine and heroin were by far the main focus of the nation's war on drugs, the Bush administration is now attacking the rising abuse of prescription drugs.While marijuana remains the nation's most abused drug, according to government and private studies, narcotic pain relievers like OxyContin and Vicodin, along with a variety of some other prescription medications, have overtaken amphetamines to rank second.
A recent nationwide study by the University of Michigan showed that from the 2002 to 2003 school year, nonmedical use of prescription drugs among students in the 8th, 10th and 12th grades increased even as use of other illicit drugs dropped by 11 percent. Doctors, other health care providers and law enforcement officials say prescription drug abuse produces the same problems as street drugs: addiction, crime and broken families.And, like street drugs, it produces headlines about celebrity drug users, notably Rush Limbaugh, who admitted last year that he was addicted to painkillers. The authorities in Palm Beach County, Fla., are investigating Mr. Limbaugh and several of his doctors on suspicion of "doctor shopping," the practice of contacting a number of physicians as a way of getting more drugs than are medically necessary. That activity is a felony in Florida.One part of the problem is that prescription drugs are advertised to millions of people every day over the Internet. Many of those drugs are from foreign sources that state and federal authorities cannot easily trace, let alone regulate. The House Government Reform Committee has scheduled a hearing for Thursday on a bill that would require such Web sites to identify their place of business, as well as affiliated doctors and pharmacists, and would ban any sales made without an in-person consultation with a doctor and a valid prescription.Beyond Congressional interest, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has for the first time instructed federal agencies with antidrug programs to develop new strategies to combat prescription drugs' abuse and illegal marketing."We don't want to wait until we get what we had with the crack epidemic," John P. Walters, who as the office's director serves as the nation's "drug czar," said in an interview. "Hopefully we're a little bit earlier in the process."Mr. Walters's office is largely a bully pulpit for the war on drugs, setting policy and then lobbying Congress for money that is distributed to the agencies carrying out the efforts. As a measure of the administration's concern about prescription drugs, President Bush is seeking $12.6 billion for antidrug programs next year. That would be a 4.6 percent increase, a request nine times as high as the average increase proposed for programs that do not involve defense or national security.Much of the responsibility for the new focus on prescription drugs falls on the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Mr. Walters said the F.D.A. was being instructed to improve labeling of commonly abused drugs and to provide doctors more information about the medicines they prescribe. The D.E.A. has been asked to shut down online pharmacies selling drugs without prescriptions and to discourage credit card companies from facilitating sales.Some drug experts say the effort, while impressive, comes late."I'm not a big subscriber to the fact that prescription drug abuse is new," said John Burke, a former Cincinnati police officer who now leads a regional antidrug task force in southern Ohio. "It's always been there. There has been some increase, but it's just getting more attention because of certain drugs, like OxyContin obviously."Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at U.C.L.A., said the widespread abuse of prescription painkillers began nearly a decade ago."It would have been great if people looking at those numbers had started to move in the mid-1990's," Professor Kleiman said. "That's not to say it's bad to do something now. We still have a major drug problem here that hasn't been addressed in any serious way."Since arriving on the market in 1996, OxyContin has become one of the most commonly prescribed narcotics for treating pain, notable for a time-release delivery and an active ingredient that is twice as potent as morphine. Abusers crush the tablets to gain its full impact at once through snorting or injection. The effect is a euphoria that many drug experts say is equal to that produced by heroin.Rural areas and other regions where many are employed in physical labor have been hit especially hard by the growing popularity of OxyContin and other painkillers. Louise Howell, executive director of Kentucky River Community Care, a social services agency in the state's Appalachian region, said easy access to prescription drugs through doctor shopping and Internet sales had brought enormously painful consequences.Citing cases in which users were supporting their habits by selling their homes and stealing from their families, she said: "It's overwhelming us. We're imploding, and it's shameful."Sgt. Bill Purcell of the Virginia state police reports the same problems in southwest Virginia, where he supervises a regional drug task force. In the last five years, he said, there have been "dramatic increases" in illicit use of prescription drugs, a trend characterized by the theft of doctors' prescription pads, callers to pharmacies who pretend to be physicians, and nurses who call in prescriptions for themselves."These drugs are everywhere," Sergeant Purcell said.Mr. Walters, the White House antidrug official, said his office intended to press more states to adopt computerized monitoring programs that help reduce doctor shopping by tracking the identities of those who write prescriptions and those who receive them; fewer than half the states now have such programs.And Michael Horn, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, a Justice Department agency that provides analysis for policy makers and support for drug-fighting programs, said he planned to shift more resources into generating information on prescription drug abuse."The increasing rates we've seen," Mr. Horn said, "are kind of scary."But even the proposed level of federal spending may not make much difference, state and local law enforcement officers say."Even the D.E.A. people I talk to say they are hurting for resources," said Sergeant Purcell. "Unless we get more resources, we'll always be behind the eight ball."Complete Title: Drug-Fighters Turn to Rising Tide of Prescription AbuseSource: New York Times (NY)Author:   Michael JanofskyPublished: March 18, 2004Copyright: 2004 The New York Times Co.Contact: letters nytimes.com Website: http://www.nytimes.com/Related Articles:Bush Expands War on Drugs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18424.shtmlAnti-Drug Strategy To Include Pain Killershttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18419.shtml
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Comment #8 posted by Virgil on March 18, 2004 at 16:28:56 PT
Staggered by fact
I was reading at CounterPunch to see if I could absorb another dose of corruption revelation when I came upon this paragraph in this article- http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey03062004.html I could deal with the report of massive thefts and government complicity in robbing the public timberlands and the report of the labor and unions being pushed down so profits might go up, but this paragraph hit me in a soft spot.The Times confidently explained that Ashcroft was "being treated with antibiotics," but the newspaper of record would never tell us that every day, 80 percent of Americans take a potentially addictive prescription drug. From 1962 to 1988, street drug addiction in America increased by 30 percent while prescription drug addiction increased by 300 percent. In most cases, these drugs are improperly tested and based on spurious science. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, of all the new drugs put on the market between 1976 and 1985, 52 percent had to be either pulled from the shelves or relabeled because they proved to be more hazardous than studies had indicated.
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Comment #7 posted by Truth on March 18, 2004 at 08:23:42 PT
oh really?
"While marijuana remains the nation's most abused drug, according to government"Excuse me? 400,000+ Americans die from tobacco and no one dies from pot. Our government lies. 
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Comment #6 posted by goneposthole on March 18, 2004 at 08:09:44 PT
Just too many drugs
The pharmaceutical companies produce too much product without proper inventory. Too much product. You will lose control.All of those children that were prescribed Ritalin for treatment of ADHD are older and 'trained' to ingest drugs. Good luck in curing the problem. Throwing more money at it won't do much good.There will be no solution for this problem. The DEA went for broke and that's what happened.Don't use drugs, illegal or legal, smoke cannabis.
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Comment #5 posted by Sam Adams on March 18, 2004 at 07:27:03 PT
sophisticated grow ops, eh?
Kappy you may be right about the tide turning. I get the sense that the government pigs realized that they've stuffed themselves at the trough, but they're starting to feel the hangover from the party. I saw an article in the business section today about how defense contractors' stocks are starting to slip, as rumblings begin in Congress that Bush's massive increases in defense spending can't be sustained.Most elected officials have a 4 or 6 year timeframe for looking at things, but the corporate elite that pull their strings aren't stupid. They see the Baby Boomers hitting retirement in 5 years; they see the US dollar plunging. Higher interest rates have been staved off for the time being but everyone knows it won't last. If the sacred cow of defense spending is on the chopping block, the ludicrous WOD won't be far behind.Also, big article in today's paper on how Howard Stern is going off on an anti-Bush tirade that will apparently last until November. He's supported Republicans like Pataki before, but apparently his urges as a civil libertarian are causing him to be disgusted by Bush and Clear Channel, the FCC, etc. It's about time that NASCAR dads realize there isn't any room for strippers & hedonism in Bush's Christian America. I'm actually starting to believe that Bush may lose and lose badly this fall. Extremists in America usually have their day, but the wheels come off the wagon awfully fast. How long did McCarthy do his thing? 1 or 2 years? Bush has racked up an awful lot of enemies in 4 years, here and abroad.
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Comment #4 posted by Petard on March 18, 2004 at 07:19:06 PT
Hurting and an 8-ball
Wonder if they intended this veiled reference to scoring some cocaine? The DEA is in pain and is "behind the eight ball", an anesthetic, when it's actually been noted the CIA is responsible for a lot of the 8-ball's of coke being on the streets of the USA. So of course the DEA is, in a Fed Govt. related way, "behind the eight ball", "behind" it as in pushing it. Cocaine gets out of the body systems much faster than cannabis, so the increase in drug testing will probably cause a subsequent rise in cocaine consumption, as well as prescription drug abuse. Nothing like feeding their own addiction for drug users/abusers by creating more addicts in herding the masses towards more powerful and more addictive subsances through increased testing. Naw, they wouldn't do that, after all, they're the govt., they're here to help. I say one way to shoot down the increase in drug testing and drugged driving laws is for folks to "ask their doctor" for a Marinol script. Fill it one time, then have a "valid medical" excuse for having metabolites in their system. "Gee oxifer, it's not the evil weed, rather a legit pharma product." So go ahead, ask your doctor, save yourself persecution by law encroachment by getting one single script of marinol and gain official immunity for piss tests. A person wouldn't actually have to use the pills, just the fact of having the script filled one time would cover them. After all, folks keep a bottle of aspirin around for sometimes years, just taking one or two infrequently, same principle would apply to marinol. It's known that people store their unused meds to use at a later time if the need surfaces again. So a person with a script of 2 year old marinol fails the piss or blood or hair test, they can still whip out their old pill bottle and say, "this is what did it, that 'migraine' yesterday".
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Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on March 18, 2004 at 05:37:11 PT:
Does anyone still entertain doubts this's staged?
Look back over the past month in Canada: the same refrain of "Give us more money, more time, (and never spoken directly but always implied) and more of your rights, and we'll end the drug problem once and for all!"Now, we hear that once again, down here, where it's heard all the time:*But even the proposed level of federal spending may not make much difference, state and local law enforcement officers say. "Even the D.E.A. people I talk to say they are hurting for resources," said Sergeant Purcell. "Unless we get more resources, we'll always be behind the eight ball."*With 20 Billion of our dollars to play with this year (and millions of Americans with their unemployment running out who could definitely use that money) the LEO's say they are 'hurting'? With having spent anywhere from 200 to 500 Billion dollars in the last 24 years, they're 'hurting'? We should have such 'pains'!The past month has given us a propaganda blitz unlike anything the cannabist community has seen before, because of it's truly international pull; Canuck LEO's have jumped on the American bandwagon, and are beating the prohib drum for all they're worth. The drum that has stamped on it's side "Made in the USA". Even their 'talking points' have an eery similarity to the ones used down here; the phrases are the same ("organized crime", yada yada, "sophisticated grow ops" yada yada, "danger to children", yada yada) so all that's changed is the accent. They come off very stridently, hoping that they can bluster their way through interviews with rapid shotgun blasts of propaganda delivered with such speed the interviewer doesn't have time to take them apart logically one by one.But these activities do not speak of surety, but desperation. The switch on emphasis from hard drugs to cannabis and from illicits in general to easily tracked pharmas is a sign that the times of 'big game hunting' are at an end. The DrugWar apparatus is indeed imploding upon itself, shrinking it's reach while loudly proclaiming it is 'streamlining' operations as if that was convincing. The gravy days of sucking the life's-blood off of a thriving economy are past; the fiscal belts are being tightened, the bureaucratic knives are being sharpened, and every agency head is suspiciously watching every other for signs of 'hostile takeover'. The DEA is especially vulnerable, given they have a received a bureaucratic black mark that could result in their being disbanded; they are searching for something, *anything*, to make them look good. Hence their pathetic attacks on glassmakers and pain doctors.But one thing has not escaped the notice of anyone that has been following this matter: the number of 'Biggest Bust Ever!'s has fallen precipitously. And given that America is supposed to have control of Afghanistan, and that pure cheap Afghani heroin is flooding Euro markets, this is doubly embarrrassing. Instead of chasing bloody handed cartels, the DEA chases...pain doctors and MMJ clubs.Makes a lot of sense...NOT!
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Comment #2 posted by Virgil on March 18, 2004 at 04:29:49 PT
That is one way to increase testing costs
Traitor Walters has called for testing as the cure that will deliver us a utopia. We will see the testing industry revenue increase as the number of substances tested is dramatically increased.The 12.6 billion dollar budget is meaningless with present accounting that seeks to produce a low number. Besides that the OMB says lying is now a tool of fascists government.I see this as mission creep. It is creating a situation where the agency must expand just as Anslinger had sone when he wanted his agency to rival the budget of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. This is much more about the DEA than it is about solving the molehill the ONDCP is mountainizing.Since it mentions foreign sources, it could well be that the pill people have called for a crackdown on importation that is cutting sales with discount prices. The common good as a call to action is again not relevant. The cheapest and most practical thing to do to reduce these prescription medicine sales is to Free Cannabis For Everyone, but you do not see the prime solution being offered as the best path.The article has a Nazi bias as it was sure to say the lie that marijuana is the most abused drug. This is a lie as people find benefit from use and Miracleplant is #1 because it delivers a the safest and best recreational experience of anything going and creates an activity that competes with television. Free Cannabis is the biggest step in harm reduction strategy because the laws themselves inflict so much harm and because we are eliminating the superior alternative to recreational use that would limit the expermentation and use of what are truly addictive substances that come with no gaurantee of purity.
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Comment #1 posted by BGreen on March 17, 2004 at 23:48:30 PT
Idiots!
As a measure of the administration's concern about prescription drugs, President Bush is seeking $12.6 billion for antidrug programs next year."Even the D.E.A. people I talk to say they are hurting for resources," said Sergeant Purcell. "Unless we get more resources, we'll always be behind the eight ball."Need I say more besides: End the war on the cannabis plant?!The Reverend Bud Green
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