Every day thousands of people die because they made the bad decision two mix two or more chemical substances. Understand that this can happen with legal medications as well as illegal ones.
The huge surge in use of prescription medication is costing everyone. Substance abuse treatment admissions for addiction involving combined use of benzodiazepine and narcotic pain relievers rose a total of 569.7%, to 33,701, from 2000 to 2010. As reported in news.nurse.com.
That figure is astronomical – 569%! By comparison, overall substance abuse treatment admissions of people ages 12 and older in the same period rose 4%, to 1.82 million.
This form of substance abuse is clearly a major a public health problem.
What to Watch Out For
According to the report, 38.7% of those with this combined addiction began use of both drugs in the same year, 34.1% first used narcotic pain relievers and the remaining 27.1% started with benzodiazepines.
The public health and safety threat we face from the abuse of prescription drugs is indisputable, and these data show the increasing need for treatment for those suffering from addiction to prescription drugs.
As a counselor for both in-class and online drug awareness classes I realize that while prevention is a critically important pillar of our prescription drug prevention plan, equally important is ensuring that treatment is available to those in need.
I would hope our federal and state governments will do more preventative maintenance, combining drug education classes within the regular school curriculum. A life is a terrible thing to waste.