 Opioids Addiction and Heroin Most opioids are prescribed, not by pain management specialists, but by primary care docs and dentists - in other words, providers who sometimes respond to pain with a prescription. No group is more worried about this than the doctors who deal with ongoing, chronic pain, or cancer pain as their specialty. They are seeing over-prescribing, inappropriate use and misuse of these relatively new drugs that now flood our market. What Are Opioid Abuse and Addiction? Opioids, also called opiates, are a class of drug. This class includes drugs derived from the opium poppy, such as morphine and codeine. It also includes synthetic or partially synthetic formulas, such as Vicodin, Percodan, oxycodone, and heroin. Some opioids, such as oxycodone, codeine, and morphine, are prescription pain medications. We do not want appropriate pain medication to lead to addiction. Today, more deaths are caused by prescription drug overdoses than we saw only a few years ago. How serious is this problem? The number of deaths and hospitalizations caused by prescription drugs has risen precipitously in the past decade, with overdoses of pain medications, in particular opioids, sedatives and tranquilizers, more than doubling between 1999 and 2006, according to a new study.
In fact, by 2006, overdoses of opioid analgesics alone (a class of pain relievers that includes morphine and methadone) were already causing more deaths than overdoses of cocaine and heroin combined. There are some actions you can take. Following a procedure get five or ten pills, not 30. When you are better, take unused medication to your police station - they have a safe disposal box for your use. Please, never flush them down the toilet and allow them to get into our water supply. |
