Attack plague of prescription drug abuse on multiple fronts

Armed robberies of pharmacies across Ohio are breaking out at alarming rates, with Mahoning County ranking second highest in the state in their frequency, according to Robert Hill, special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

That distressing data represent but one of the many harmful side effects of the epidemic of prescription drug abuse gripping our nation.

Ohio ranks sixth highest in the U.S. with 29 such robberies of pharmacies so far this year, Hill told members of the Geauga County Mental Health and Recovery Services last month. Eighteen percent of those robberies occurred in Mahoning County, even though the county has but 2 percent of the state’s population. Trumbull County had similar high rankings, coming in fifth highest among the state’s 88 counties.

The data reinforce the close ties between drug addiction and crime and stands as yet another compelling reason why the state and the Valley should work tirelessly on several fronts to fight the drug epidemic. Part of that action plan must target addiction by prescription.

From the late 1990s when painkiller prescription guidelines were significantly relaxed, to 2010, distribution of prescription opioids in Ohio skyrocketed ninefold. So, too, did the rates of fatal overdoses, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Nationwide, in 2011, enough of the painkiller hydrocodone was prescribed to medicate every one of the nation’s 315 million residents around the clock for one month.

In the Mahoning Valley, that out-of-control trend is painfully evident. Opiod overdose deaths in Mahoning and Trumbull counties soared from 22 in 2001 to 82 in 2012, according to ODH data released this year. And health leaders report those numbers keep on growing.

Besides the human costs, prescription drug abuse in Ohio exacts a heavy toll elsewhere. According to Gov. John Kasich’s Opiate Action Team, unintentional fatal drug overdoses cost Ohioans $2 billion in 2012 in medical and work- loss costs, or $5.4 million each day.

To its credit, the governor’s action team has worked admirably over the past three years to develop policies and recommendations to stem the scourge of opioid abuse in the Buckeye State. But public policy can only do so much. Physicians, their patients and parents must take greater personal responsibility if we are to make any significant dents in the epidemic.

Doctors can start by more carefully considering the consequences of instinctively reaching for prescription pads at the whim of a patient. That advice does not, however, mean completely banning such painkillers that, when properly prescribed and used, alleviate excruciating pain for millions.

Potential for abuse, addiction

It does mean, however, that physicians and patients alike must understand their potential for abuse and addiction. Groups highly vulnerable to addiction — young people, those suffering anxiety and depression and those on government-financed prescription-drug plans — ought to pay special heed not to let temporary pain relief degenerate into long-term addiction.

As Hill points out, parents, too, must play a critical role. He argues, for example, that “parents believe that using prescription drugs to get high is safer than street drugs and that it’s OK for kids to use someone else’s prescription.”

Such beliefs are fallacious and dangerous. After all, most young heroin users began their slide into addiction with the more expensive prescription pills.

For the benefit of young and old addicts alike, the war on prescription drug abuse must intensify. Winning it, of course, will neither be easy nor speedy. Health agencies, schools and parents, among others, must reinforce their anti-opiate campaigns if this plague on our Valley, state and nation is ever to be arrested.