Re: Fwd: Soaring Painkiller Sales Fuel Fears Of Addiction

[Guest guest]

So glad to hear that 'they' are finally admitting 'we have a problem'. Choosing to addict people to narcotics rather than refer them to us has been a policy since the 70s. It never DID make any sense to me and that was BEFORE I was a DC. It still doen'st make any sense to me and the willingness to do that in Oregon - as mandated by the TAsk Force on Pain & Symptom Managment during Kitz's first term - is the reason the Fibromyalgia Care Center of Oregon was established. The hand of Big PHarma. skSunny Kierstyn, RN DC Fibromyalgia Care Center of Oregon 2677 Willakenzie Road, 7CEugene, Oregon, 97401541- 654-0850; Fx; 541- 654-0834www.drsunnykierstyn.com To: oregondcs From: drjdyson1@...Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:58:17 -0700Subject: Fwd: Soaring Painkiller Sales Fuel Fears Of Addiction

I found the following story on the NPR iPhone App:http://www.npr.org/2012/04/05/150070840/soaring-painkiller-sales-fuel-fears-of-addiction?sc=17 & f=1128Soaring Painkiller Sales Fuel Fears Of Addictionby The Associated PressThe Associated Press - April 5, 2012Sales of the nation's two most popular prescription painkillers have exploded in new parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis shows, worrying experts who say the push to relieve patients' suffering is spawning an addiction epidemic.From New York's Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M., Drug Enforcement Administration figures show dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan. Some places saw sales increase sixteenfold.Meanwhile, the distribution of hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin, Norco and Lortab, is rising in Appalachia, the original epicenter of the painkiller epidemic, as well as in the Midwest.The increases have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other states. Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the death toll is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.Nationwide, pharmacies received and ultimately dispensed the equivalent of 69 tons of pure oxycodone and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone in 2010, the last year for which statistics are available. That's enough to give 40 5-mg Percocets and 24 5-mg Vicodins to every person in the United States. The DEA data records shipments from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals, practitioners and teaching institutions. The drugs are eventually dispensed and sold to patients, but the DEA does not keep track of how much individual patients receive.The increase is partly due to the aging U.S. population with pain issues and a greater willingness by doctors to treat pain, said Bunt, medical director at New York's Daytop Village chain of drug treatment clinics.Sales are also being driven by addiction, as users become physically dependent on painkillers and begin "doctor shopping" to keep the prescriptions coming, he said."Prescription medications can provide enormous health and quality-of-life benefits to patients," Gil Kerlikowske, the U.S. drug czar, told Congress in March. "However, we all now recognize that these drugs can be just as dangerous and deadly as illicit substances when misused or abused."Opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone can release intense feelings of well-being. Some abusers swallow the pills; others crush them, then smoke, snort or inject the powder.Unlike most street drugs, the problem has its roots in two disparate parts of the country — Appalachia and affluent suburbs, said Pete , president of Advocates for the Reform of Prescription Opioids."Now it's spreading from those two poles," said.The AP analysis used drug data collected quarterly by the DEA's Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System. The DEA tracks shipments sent from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals, practitioners and teaching institutions and then compiles the data using three-digit ZIP codes. Every ZIP code starting with 100-, for example, is lumped together into one figure.The AP combined this data with census figures to determine effective sales per capita.A few ZIP codes that include military bases or Veterans Affairs hospitals have seen large increases in painkiller use because of soldier patients injured in the Middle East, law enforcement officials say. In addition, small areas around St. Louis, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Newark, N.J., have seen their totals affected because mail-order pharmacies have shipping centers there, said Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.Many of the sales trends stretch across bigger areas.In 2000, oxycodone sales were centered in coal-mining areas of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky — places with high concentrations of people with back problems and other chronic pain.But by 2010, the strongest oxycodone sales had overtaken most of Tennessee and Kentucky, stretching as far north as Columbus, Ohio and as far south as Macon, Ga.Per-capita oxycodone sales increased five- or six-fold in most of Tennessee during the decade."We've got a problem. We've got to get a handle on it," said Tommy Farmer, a counterdrug official with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.Many buyers began crossing into Tennessee to fill prescriptions after border states began strengthening computer systems meant to monitor drug sales, Farmer said.In 2006, only 20 states had prescription drug monitoring programs aimed at tracking patients. Now 40 do, but many aren't linked together, so abusers can simply go to another state when they're flagged in one state's system. There is no federal monitoring of prescription drugs at the patient level.In Florida, the AP analysis underscores the difficulty of the state's decade-long battle against "pill mills," unscrupulous doctors who churn out dozens of prescriptions a day.In 2000, Florida's oxycodone sales were centered around West Palm Beach. By 2010, oxycodone was flowing to nearly every part of the state.While still not as high as in Appalachia or Florida, oxycodone sales also increased dramatically in New York City and its suburbs. The borough of Staten Island saw sales leap 1,200 percent.New York's Long Island has also seen huge increases. In Islip, N.Y., teenager Makenzie Emerson says she started stealing oxycodone that her mother was prescribed in 2009 after a fall on ice. Soon Emerson was popping six pills at a time."When I would go over to friends' houses I would raid their medicine cabinets because I knew their parents were most likely taking something," said Emerson, now 19.One day she overdosed at the mall. Her mother, Phyllis Ferraro, tried to keep her daughter breathing until the ambulance arrived."The pills are everywhere," Ferraro said. "There aren't enough treatment centers and yet there's a pharmacy on every corner."The American Southwest has emerged as another hot spot.Parts of New Mexico have seen tenfold increases in oxycodone sales per capita and fivefold increases in hydrocodone. The state had the highest rate of opioid painkiller overdoses in 2008, with 27 per 100,000 population.Many parts of eastern California received only modest amounts of oxycodone in 2010, but the increase from 2000 was dramatic — more than 500 percent around Modesto and Stockton.Many California addicts are switching from methamphetamine to prescription pills, said Harsany, medical director of Riverside County's substance abuse program.Hydrocodone use has increased in some areas with large Indian reservations, including South Dakota, northeastern Arizona and northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Many of these communities have battled substance abuse problems in the past.Experts worry painkiller sales are spreading quickly in areas where there are few clinics to treat people who get hooked, Bunt said.In Utica, N.Y., Reynolds has struggled to find treatment after becoming dependent on hydrocodone pills originally prescribed for a broken tailbone.The nearest clinics offering Suboxone, an anti-addiction drug, are an hour's drive away in stown or Syracuse. And those programs are full and are not accepting new patients, she said."You can't have one clinic like that in the whole area," Reynolds said. "It's a really sad epidemic. I want people to start talking about it instead of pretending it's not a problem and hiding." [Copyright 2012 The Associated Press]To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnewsSent from my iPhone

[Guest guest]

Apparently, pain is an oxy/hydrocodone deficiency problem..... why

didn't we think of that?

Rod , DC

Tillamook

 

I found the following story on the NPR iPhone

App:

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/05/150070840/soaring-painkiller-sales-fuel-fears-of-addiction?sc=17 & f=1128

Soaring Painkiller Sales Fuel Fears Of Addiction

by The Associated Press

The Associated Press - April 5, 2012

Sales of the nation's two most popular

prescription painkillers have exploded in new

parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis

shows, worrying experts who say the push to

relieve patients' suffering is spawning an

addiction epidemic.

From New York's Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M.,

Drug Enforcement Administration figures show

dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the

distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in

OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan. Some places saw

sales increase sixteenfold.

Meanwhile, the distribution of hydrocodone, the

key ingredient in Vicodin, Norco and Lortab, is

rising in Appalachia, the original epicenter of

the painkiller epidemic, as well as in the

Midwest.

The increases have coincided with a wave of

overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other

problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and

other states. Opioid pain relievers, the category

that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused

14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the

death toll is rising, the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention says.

Nationwide, pharmacies received and ultimately

dispensed the equivalent of 69 tons of pure

oxycodone and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone in 2010,

the last year for which statistics are available.

That's enough to give 40 5-mg Percocets and 24

5-mg Vicodins to every person in the United

States. The DEA data records shipments from

distributors to pharmacies, hospitals,

practitioners and teaching institutions. The drugs

are eventually dispensed and sold to patients, but

the DEA does not keep track of how much individual

patients receive.

The increase is partly due to the aging U.S.

population with pain issues and a greater

willingness by doctors to treat pain, said

Bunt, medical director at New York's Daytop

Village chain of drug treatment clinics.

Sales are also being driven by addiction, as

users become physically dependent on painkillers

and begin "doctor shopping" to keep the

prescriptions coming, he said.

"Prescription medications can provide enormous

health and quality-of-life benefits to patients,"

Gil Kerlikowske, the U.S. drug czar, told Congress

in March. "However, we all now recognize that

these drugs can be just as dangerous and deadly as

illicit substances when misused or abused."

Opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone can

release intense feelings of well-being. Some

abusers swallow the pills; others crush them, then

smoke, snort or inject the powder.

Unlike most street drugs, the problem has its

roots in two disparate parts of the country —

Appalachia and affluent suburbs, said Pete

, president of Advocates for the Reform of

Prescription Opioids.

"Now it's spreading from those two poles,"

said.

The AP analysis used drug data collected

quarterly by the DEA's Automation of Reports and

Consolidated Orders System. The DEA tracks

shipments sent from distributors to pharmacies,

hospitals, practitioners and teaching institutions

and then compiles the data using three-digit ZIP

codes. Every ZIP code starting with 100-, for

example, is lumped together into one figure.

The AP combined this data with census figures to

determine effective sales per capita.

A few ZIP codes that include military bases or

Veterans Affairs hospitals have seen large

increases in painkiller use because of soldier

patients injured in the Middle East, law

enforcement officials say. In addition, small

areas around St. Louis, Indianapolis, Las Vegas

and Newark, N.J., have seen their totals affected

because mail-order pharmacies have shipping

centers there, said Carmen Catizone, executive

director of the National Association of Boards of

Pharmacy.

Many of the sales trends stretch across bigger

areas.

In 2000, oxycodone sales were centered in

coal-mining areas of West Virginia and eastern

Kentucky — places with high concentrations of

people with back problems and other chronic pain.

But by 2010, the strongest oxycodone sales had

overtaken most of Tennessee and Kentucky,

stretching as far north as Columbus, Ohio and as

far south as Macon, Ga.

Per-capita oxycodone sales increased five- or

six-fold in most of Tennessee during the decade.

"We've got a problem. We've got to get a handle

on it," said Tommy Farmer, a counterdrug official

with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Many buyers began crossing into Tennessee to fill

prescriptions after border states began

strengthening computer systems meant to monitor

drug sales, Farmer said.

In 2006, only 20 states had prescription drug

monitoring programs aimed at tracking patients.

Now 40 do, but many aren't linked together, so

abusers can simply go to another state when

they're flagged in one state's system. There is no

federal monitoring of prescription drugs at the

patient level.

In Florida, the AP analysis underscores the

difficulty of the state's decade-long battle

against "pill mills," unscrupulous doctors who

churn out dozens of prescriptions a day.

In 2000, Florida's oxycodone sales were centered

around West Palm Beach. By 2010, oxycodone was

flowing to nearly every part of the state.

While still not as high as in Appalachia or

Florida, oxycodone sales also increased

dramatically in New York City and its suburbs. The

borough of Staten Island saw sales leap 1,200

percent.

New York's Long Island has also seen huge

increases. In Islip, N.Y., teenager Makenzie

Emerson says she started stealing oxycodone that

her mother was prescribed in 2009 after a fall on

ice. Soon Emerson was popping six pills at a time.

"When I would go over to friends' houses I would

raid their medicine cabinets because I knew their

parents were most likely taking something," said

Emerson, now 19.

One day she overdosed at the mall. Her mother,

Phyllis Ferraro, tried to keep her daughter

breathing until the ambulance arrived.

"The pills are everywhere," Ferraro said. "There

aren't enough treatment centers and yet there's a

pharmacy on every corner."

The American Southwest has emerged as another hot

spot.

Parts of New Mexico have seen tenfold increases

in oxycodone sales per capita and fivefold

increases in hydrocodone. The state had the

highest rate of opioid painkiller overdoses in

2008, with 27 per 100,000 population.

Many parts of eastern California received only

modest amounts of oxycodone in 2010, but the

increase from 2000 was dramatic — more than 500

percent around Modesto and Stockton.

Many California addicts are switching from

methamphetamine to prescription pills, said

Harsany, medical director of Riverside County's

substance abuse program.

Hydrocodone use has increased in some areas with

large Indian reservations, including South Dakota,

northeastern Arizona and northern Minnesota and

Wisconsin. Many of these communities have battled

substance abuse problems in the past.

Experts worry painkiller sales are spreading

quickly in areas where there are few clinics to

treat people who get hooked, Bunt said.

In Utica, N.Y., Reynolds has struggled

to find treatment after becoming dependent on

hydrocodone pills originally prescribed for a

broken tailbone.

The nearest clinics offering Suboxone, an

anti-addiction drug, are an hour's drive away in

stown or Syracuse. And those programs are

full and are not accepting new patients, she said.

"You can't have one clinic like that in the whole

area," Reynolds said. "It's a really sad epidemic.

I want people to start talking about it instead of

pretending it's not a problem and hiding."

[Copyright 2012 The Associated Press]

To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews

Sent from my iPhone

No virus found in this message.

Checked by AVG - www.avg.com

Version: 2012.0.2127 / Virus Database: 2411/4928 - Release Date:

04/11/12

[Guest guest]

dadumpbump! ;'-))Sunny Kierstyn, RN DC Fibromyalgia Care Center of Oregon 2677 Willakenzie Road, 7CEugene, Oregon, 97401541- 654-0850; Fx; 541- 654-0834www.drsunnykierstyn.com To: drjdyson1@...CC: oregondcs From: rjacksondc@...Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:37:58 -0700Subject: Re: Fwd: Soaring Painkiller Sales Fuel Fears Of Addiction

Apparently, pain is an oxy/hydrocodone deficiency problem..... why

didn't we think of that?

Rod , DC

Tillamook

I found the following story on the NPR iPhone

App:

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/05/150070840/soaring-painkiller-sales-fuel-fears-of-addiction?sc=17 & f=1128

Soaring Painkiller Sales Fuel Fears Of Addiction

by The Associated Press

The Associated Press - April 5, 2012

Sales of the nation's two most popular

prescription painkillers have exploded in new

parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis

shows, worrying experts who say the push to

relieve patients' suffering is spawning an

addiction epidemic.

From New York's Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M.,

Drug Enforcement Administration figures show

dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the

distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in

OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan. Some places saw

sales increase sixteenfold.

Meanwhile, the distribution of hydrocodone, the

key ingredient in Vicodin, Norco and Lortab, is

rising in Appalachia, the original epicenter of

the painkiller epidemic, as well as in the

Midwest.

The increases have coincided with a wave of

overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other

problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and

other states. Opioid pain relievers, the category

that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused

14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the

death toll is rising, the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention says.

Nationwide, pharmacies received and ultimately

dispensed the equivalent of 69 tons of pure

oxycodone and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone in 2010,

the last year for which statistics are available.

That's enough to give 40 5-mg Percocets and 24

5-mg Vicodins to every person in the United

States. The DEA data records shipments from

distributors to pharmacies, hospitals,

practitioners and teaching institutions. The drugs

are eventually dispensed and sold to patients, but

the DEA does not keep track of how much individual

patients receive.

The increase is partly due to the aging U.S.

population with pain issues and a greater

willingness by doctors to treat pain, said

Bunt, medical director at New York's Daytop

Village chain of drug treatment clinics.

Sales are also being driven by addiction, as

users become physically dependent on painkillers

and begin "doctor shopping" to keep the

prescriptions coming, he said.

"Prescription medications can provide enormous

health and quality-of-life benefits to patients,"

Gil Kerlikowske, the U.S. drug czar, told Congress

in March. "However, we all now recognize that

these drugs can be just as dangerous and deadly as

illicit substances when misused or abused."

Opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone can

release intense feelings of well-being. Some

abusers swallow the pills; others crush them, then

smoke, snort or inject the powder.

Unlike most street drugs, the problem has its

roots in two disparate parts of the country —

Appalachia and affluent suburbs, said Pete

, president of Advocates for the Reform of

Prescription Opioids.

"Now it's spreading from those two poles,"

said.

The AP analysis used drug data collected

quarterly by the DEA's Automation of Reports and

Consolidated Orders System. The DEA tracks

shipments sent from distributors to pharmacies,

hospitals, practitioners and teaching institutions

and then compiles the data using three-digit ZIP

codes. Every ZIP code starting with 100-, for

example, is lumped together into one figure.

The AP combined this data with census figures to

determine effective sales per capita.

A few ZIP codes that include military bases or

Veterans Affairs hospitals have seen large

increases in painkiller use because of soldier

patients injured in the Middle East, law

enforcement officials say. In addition, small

areas around St. Louis, Indianapolis, Las Vegas

and Newark, N.J., have seen their totals affected

because mail-order pharmacies have shipping

centers there, said Carmen Catizone, executive

director of the National Association of Boards of

Pharmacy.

Many of the sales trends stretch across bigger

areas.

In 2000, oxycodone sales were centered in

coal-mining areas of West Virginia and eastern

Kentucky — places with high concentrations of

people with back problems and other chronic pain.

But by 2010, the strongest oxycodone sales had

overtaken most of Tennessee and Kentucky,

stretching as far north as Columbus, Ohio and as

far south as Macon, Ga.

Per-capita oxycodone sales increased five- or

six-fold in most of Tennessee during the decade.

"We've got a problem. We've got to get a handle

on it," said Tommy Farmer, a counterdrug official

with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Many buyers began crossing into Tennessee to fill

prescriptions after border states began

strengthening computer systems meant to monitor

drug sales, Farmer said.

In 2006, only 20 states had prescription drug

monitoring programs aimed at tracking patients.

Now 40 do, but many aren't linked together, so

abusers can simply go to another state when

they're flagged in one state's system. There is no

federal monitoring of prescription drugs at the

patient level.

In Florida, the AP analysis underscores the

difficulty of the state's decade-long battle

against "pill mills," unscrupulous doctors who

churn out dozens of prescriptions a day.

In 2000, Florida's oxycodone sales were centered

around West Palm Beach. By 2010, oxycodone was

flowing to nearly every part of the state.

While still not as high as in Appalachia or

Florida, oxycodone sales also increased

dramatically in New York City and its suburbs. The

borough of Staten Island saw sales leap 1,200

percent.

New York's Long Island has also seen huge

increases. In Islip, N.Y., teenager Makenzie

Emerson says she started stealing oxycodone that

her mother was prescribed in 2009 after a fall on

ice. Soon Emerson was popping six pills at a time.

"When I would go over to friends' houses I would

raid their medicine cabinets because I knew their

parents were most likely taking something," said

Emerson, now 19.

One day she overdosed at the mall. Her mother,

Phyllis Ferraro, tried to keep her daughter

breathing until the ambulance arrived.

"The pills are everywhere," Ferraro said. "There

aren't enough treatment centers and yet there's a

pharmacy on every corner."

The American Southwest has emerged as another hot

spot.

Parts of New Mexico have seen tenfold increases

in oxycodone sales per capita and fivefold

increases in hydrocodone. The state had the

highest rate of opioid painkiller overdoses in

2008, with 27 per 100,000 population.

Many parts of eastern California received only

modest amounts of oxycodone in 2010, but the

increase from 2000 was dramatic — more than 500

percent around Modesto and Stockton.

Many California addicts are switching from

methamphetamine to prescription pills, said

Harsany, medical director of Riverside County's

substance abuse program.

Hydrocodone use has increased in some areas with

large Indian reservations, including South Dakota,

northeastern Arizona and northern Minnesota and

Wisconsin. Many of these communities have battled

substance abuse problems in the past.

Experts worry painkiller sales are spreading

quickly in areas where there are few clinics to

treat people who get hooked, Bunt said.

In Utica, N.Y., Reynolds has struggled

to find treatment after becoming dependent on

hydrocodone pills originally prescribed for a

broken tailbone.

The nearest clinics offering Suboxone, an

anti-addiction drug, are an hour's drive away in

stown or Syracuse. And those programs are

full and are not accepting new patients, she said.

"You can't have one clinic like that in the whole

area," Reynolds said. "It's a really sad epidemic.

I want people to start talking about it instead of

pretending it's not a problem and hiding."

[Copyright 2012 The Associated Press]

To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews

Sent from my iPhone

No virus found in this message.

Checked by AVG - www.avg.com

Version: 2012.0.2127 / Virus Database: 2411/4928 - Release Date:

04/11/12