Oregon Discovers Prescription Drug Abuse Problem

May 21, 2009 Source-ABC News

MEDFORD, Ore. - The number of people abusing prescription pain medication is on the rise across the country.

Non-medical prescription drug-related deaths has risen by nearly 115-percent nationwide in the last few years.

"It's a little bit more difficult to catch people, because people will have a prescription for it, or maybe they obtained it fraudulently," says Sergeant Phil Eastman with the Medford Police Department.

Eastman supervises the Street Drug Unit with the Medford Police Department. He says the department sees at least one person a week trying to fill a fraudulent prescription, and the department is trying to crack down on prescription drug dealers.

"Those dealers are no different than meth dealers or heroine dealers," says Eastman.

Police admit it's hard to catch the dealers because many have a prescription themselves.

"Part of the attraction is the availability, the ease at which they can obtain the drugs," says Eastman.

Males ages 18-to-25 are the most common abusers of prescription drugs.

The MPD says it is even seeing school age kids abusing.

"I think it's no different that a kid finding dad's Jack Daniel's in the liquor cabinet, and he just takes a drink of it," says Eastman.

Medford's Addiction Recovery Center says prescription drug abuse is it's largest area of growth in the last year.

"It starts becoming an issue of taking medication just to relieve symptoms that are created by taking the medication. so it becomes a spiral," says ARC Operations Director Ed Burns.

ARC says it used to see an average of three to four people in its programs on a typical day. Now, it's anywhere from 12 to 15.

The MPD says the top two prescription drugs abused in the area are OxyContin and Methadone.

Navigent3.com
Effective Oral Fluid Drug Tests