Prescription Drug Addiction: Rise Endangers Celebrities, Teens, and Us

Would it surprise you to learn that prescription drug overdoses now kill more people than car accidents? Somehow that message doesn’t seem to be getting out, says the CDC, which now calls prescription drug abuse an epidemic.

Over the past 20 years, the death rate from drug overdoses has tripled, CDC data show, with prescription painkillers the reason for much of that rise. In 2008 there were 36,000 overdose deaths, almost all of which were from prescription painkillers.

The growth rate is pretty shocking; in 2010 (the last year the CDC has data for), 2 million people reported that they had begun to use prescription drugs for non-medical purposes within the past year. That, says the CDC, comes out to 5,500 a day. The number of people seeking treatment for prescription painkillers rose 400 percent between 2004 and 2008.

Because they can so handily be “borrowed” from friends and family, and because — being technically legal – they seem innocent, prescription drugs are becoming frighteningly popular with teens, experts say. According to the FDA, one in seven teenagers admits to abusing prescription drugs to get high in the past year, and prescription painkillers are now teenagers’ top choice after alcohol and pot.  The problem is, teenagers are unlikely to understand how highly addictive these drugs are. After all, if mom takes them for her knee injury, they can’t be that big a deal, right?

 The “Heath Ledger Effect” – Death from Multi-Drug Abuse

“Abuse of prescription medications” was the final conclusion of the New York Medical Examiner based on Heath Ledger’s autopsy and toxicological analysis. What was found in his system? An entire drugstore of downers: oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine. While swallowing half the contents of the medicine cabinet may be rare, the overall phenomena  — mixing several central nervous system depressants — is becoming more and more common.

What’s particularly scary is that while some folks are certainly doing it on purpose, many others are endangering themselves unknowingly. The list of prescription medicines that depress the central nervous system is long. By far the worst offenders are the opioid painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone (Oxycontin and Vicodin). But there are many others that are commonly prescribed including sleep aids, both prescription and OTC, anti-anxiety drugs, even antihistamines. (Diphenhydramine, commonly known as Benadryl, for example).

Why Celebrity Oxycontin and Vicodin Charges Disappear

Ask a lawyer, and you’ll hear that because prescription drugs are indeed legal if you have a prescription, it’s much more challenging to make possession charges stick. A case in point was actor Gary Lourdan, formerly of CSI, who was arrested for Oxycontin possession last winter after a car accident. The charges were later dropped, as they often are when authorities can’t prove the possessor didn’t have a valid prescription.

Lindsay Lohan’s battles have received so much attention it’s hard to sort fact from exaggeration. But while alcohol has played the largest role in her many busts and trips to rehab, prescription painkillers have been mentioned too. In 2007, her father – himself a recovering alcoholic -  spoke to national media, pleading with Lohan to get help for Oxycontin addiction. Another former child starlet, Amanda Bynes, has recently begun having her own troubles withdriving and the law, swideswiping a police car. It was her second accident in quick succession. Bynes refused to take a breathalyzer or drug test at the scene so it’s hard to draw conclusions at this point.