Survey Shows US Prescription Drug Abuse Down In 2008 From 2007
By Jared A. Favole, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The number of Americans abusing prescription drugs
dropped by about 1 million from 2007 to 2008, but the percentage of people using
illegal drugs held steady over the same time frame, according to a national
survey released Thursday.
The 67,000-person survey shows more than 15.2 million people in the U.S.
acknowledged taking a prescription drug for non-medical reasons in 2008,
compared with 16.3 million in 2007.
Although the survey doesn't delve into why rates of abuse rise and fall, part
of the drop may be attributable to a nationwide media campaign aimed at alerting
parents to the potential abuse of prescription medicines.
Robert Denniston, director of the National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign, a program
run out of the drug control program in the White House, says it's always hard to
"unravel all the multiple factors" that contribute to why people abuse
prescription medicines and other drugs.
Still, he says, a push by the federal government and a host of anti-drug
organizations and local communities to alert parents about the potential perils
of giving kids easy access to prescription drugs is having an impact.
One effective advertisement, Denniston says, ran during the Super Bowl. It
featured a drug dealer outside a store bemoaning the loss of all his "
customers."
"It seems like half my customers they don't even need me any more, ya' know, I
mean they are getting high for free, outta' the medicine cabinets," the man
says. "How am I supposed to compete with that?"
While prescription drug abuse rates have dropped, others haven't. The survey,
conducted by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, or SAMHSA, shows marijuana smoking rates for teenagers held
steady and the number of LSD and Ecstasy users continue to climb.
The annual SAMHSA study surveys 67,500 people and is considered the primary
source of information on illegal drug use and prescription medicine abuse.
The survey also shows that the rate of abuse of pain relievers, which include
commonly taken drugs such as Tylenol, dropped year over year. However, the
percentage of patients taking the powerful painkiller Oxycontin increased, said
Joe Gfroerer, a statistician with SAMHSA.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been working with drug companies to
create mechanisms that make it harder for the medicines like Oxycontin and
Tylenol to be abused.
-By Jared A. Favole, Dow Jones Newswires; 202.862.9207; jared.favole@
dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
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