By HeathPop Staff
Abusing painkillers is a big problem in the U.S. - about 12 million people said they used painkillers for non-medical reasons in the past year, according to recent CDC estimates.

A new study found rates of newborns born addicted to opiate drugs tripled over the past decade, driven by legal and illegal use of opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone, CBS News reported. The number of newborns with withdrawal symptoms increased from a little more than 1 per 1,000 babies in 2000 to more than 3 per 1,000 in 2009, according to the study.  » More

By Joe Rojas-Burke, The Oregonian
Oregon's rate of use of opiates without a prescription is the second highest in the U.S. after Oklahoma. A recent federal study suggests that Oregon doctors' greater willingness to prescribe opioid pain relievers may partly explain the state's exceptionally high rate of abuse. It found that rates of use without a prescription ranged from lows of 3.6 percent in Nebraska and Iowa, to highs of 6.8 percent in Oregon and 8.1 percent in Oklahoma. Legal sales ranged from less than 4 kilograms per 10,000 people in Illinois to more than 11 kilograms in Oregon, Tennessee, Nevada and Florida. » More

By Lloyd I. Sederer, MD; Medical director, New York State Office of Mental Health

Every 14 minutes a person dies of a drug overdose in the United States.
This means more than 35,000 deaths every year, exceeding motor vehicle crashes, homicides and suicides!

The director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), R. Gil Kerlikowske, a former police and justice official, has called the illegal use of prescription drugs, especially narcotic medications in pill form, the nation's "fastest-growing drug problem." What once dominated the world of overdoses in the U.S., namely heroin, has been eclipsed by the prescription painkillers (see below). These drugs are termed opioid analgesics, referring to substances produced from the opium poppy or manufactured synthetically with the same pain killing effects on the human brain (analgesic means lack of pain).  » More

* Nearly 15,000 died in 2008 of painkiller overdoses
* Millions report non-medical use of painkillers
* Death rate highest among males, whites, middle-aged

By Alina Selyukh
Nov 1 (Reuters) - Nearly 15,000 Americans died from an overdose of prescription painkillers in 2008, a record rate that has outstripped fatalities from illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin combined, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday. » More

By Scott Hensley
In a bracing call to action, three doctors from California are telling their peers to think twice before prescribing potent narcotics for patients with chronic pain.

Drugs such as Vicodin, Percocet and Oxycontin have become among the most prescribed in the country. Between 15 and 20 percent of patient visits with physicians the U.S. include a prescription for an opioid, the modern painkilling medicines whose roots can be traced back to the opium poppy.  » More

The Huffington Post; Amanda Chan
The number of deaths from prescription painkillers -- opioids, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and hydrocodone -- in the United States has now surpassed that of skin cancer, alcoholic liver disease and HIV, according to a new study published online in the British Medical Journal.

The deaths may be linked with an increase in doctors prescribing the drugs to patients with chronic pain -- like osteoarthritis -- and not just cancer patients, according to the University of Toronto researchers.  » More