 "Photo: Courtesy Photo")
On Tuesday, October 21, 2003, Gabby Bradley was sitting in her Marblehead, Mass., home. Moments after thinking about how her 17-year-old son Robert was adapting to a new life away from Marblehead, a policeman knocked on her front door to tell her that there was an incident, and Robert was dead.
After waiting many agonizing, sleepless weeks to find out why her son died, Bradley finally got an answer from the medical examiner's office: he had died from an overdose of morphine.
Robert Bradley is just one of the several people whose life has ended due to the rise of opiates and prescription pain medication that have been wreaking havoc in American society.
According to a national survey done by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services and Administration, four million young adults between the ages of 18 to 25 used prescription painkillers like OxyContin in 2006 for non-medicinal reasons. Of that four million, 1.7 percent met the criteria for dependence or abuse.
"The abuse of prescription medicine is tremendous," said Dr. Jefferson Prince, the director of child psychiatry for North Shore Medical Center in Salem, Mass. "People feel invincible and push their bodies without knowing any real consequences."
Adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 tend to experiment with drugs like OxyContin, Oxycodone, Vicodin and ADD medication like Adderall. Prince said that people aged 20 to 25, on the other hand, tend to lean more toward opiates and benzodiazepines.
Opiates, or opioid analgesics, include hydrocodone, Oxycodone, methadone, Codeine, Dilaudid, morphine, Demerol, opium and any other drug with morphine-like effects. Benzodiazepines include colodopin and clonazepam.
With prescription pain medication and other prescription pills becoming more and more available for people of all ages, the question singed into the brains of specialists and parents is how these kids are obtaining such lethal drugs.
"Doctors prescribe the pill for a reason initially," said Edith Posselt, a staff psychologist and the coordinator of the testing program at UNH's Counseling Center. "Then some people stop taking a prescription before the dosage is up and they can begin selling it to other people, or even begin taking it themselves. They like the way it makes them feel, then step it up a notch to something else."
Once experimenting with one drug, it can be very difficult to stop because these painkillers are very addicting, Posselt said.
"When you have your first high from OxyContin, it's so compelling that you try your whole life to reach that high and you never do," Bradley explained. "Overdosing is almost ordained."
When someone runs out of a pill, they use the next alternative, doctor shopping, or simply going to see a different doctor to cover any trails that could make someone suspicious of an addiction or dependency problem.
"People in healthcare don't have time to sit down with someone and really find out why they need these drugs," said Posselt. "Prescribers should find out about the patient's history - for example, if they had seen any other doctors - or even analyzing their symptoms to a greater extent. They should check into finding out what has been going on between doctors."
Another national survey on drug use and health was done by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to find out what was going on with substance abuse.
"In 2006 we noted that the overall illicit drug abuse declined, but there was a significant rise in the use of prescription drugs," said Brad Stone, the senior director of external relations for SAMHSA.
The non-medicinal use of prescription drugs increased from 5.4 percent in 2002 to 6.4 percent in 2006, said Stone.
"For people indicating abuse of pain killers we asked them where they're getting it from," said Stone. "Over half of them said they got the drugs from a friend or a relative for free, from people who have legitimate use of the drug."
The concern with analysts, public health advisors and psychiatrists is that when people are using several potent substances without supervision, unintended consequences can occur.
"I think the serious and fatal problems are synergetic," said Micki West, a New Hampshire-licensed alcohol and drug counselor. "Mixing anti-anxiety medicines, or benzos, with opiates can be fatal. And then when people have taken one drug, they forget they've taken it, so they have another. This is when accidental overdoses occur."
The misuse of prescription painkillers and other prescription drugs have become so lethal that some high school students have created pharming parties. This is when kids will take any sort of prescription medicine they can find in their household and bring it to a party. Once at the party, each person will put whatever drugs they found into a large bowl, then everyone digs in.
The problem with pharming parties and other misuses with painkillers and prescription drugs, according to Prince, is that there is a lack of education of how deadly and addictive they can be if abused.
Although the misuse and abuse of prescription painkillers has become prevalent on the North Shore, school officials do not believe the University of New Hampshire shows any eminent signs of this problem.
"We follow federal and state regulations when it comes to filling prescriptions for pain medications," said Laura O'Connell, a pharmacist at UNH Health Services. "The doctors who prescribe pain medication to patients use their discretion when they do so."
Prescribing pain medications such as Vicodin, and Percocet at UNH is somewhat common, but only in small quantities. There is no over-prescribing of pain medication at UNH, O'Connell said.
After Bradley found out what killed her son, she wondered, "Who in the world puts morphine in their system and thinks it's a good idea?"
"We need to educate kids and make them aware of the fatal consequences before they learn for themselves, and they learn the hard way," Prince said. "There was a boy in Reading, Mass., eight years ago who experimented with deodorant. He huffed the deodorant, went to play basketball with his dad, and when he came in for a shower, he dropped dead. But are we supposed to get rid of deodorant? You can't simply banish something because a certain amount of people are abusing it."
UNH Health Services offers educational assistance concerning drug abuse, and drug addiction. There are over 18 websites listed on the UNH Health Services website that give information about substance abuse for alcohol and drugs, along with two websites dedicated to the parents of children who are experiencing drug addiction, and what they can do to educate their children about it.
A challenge about eradicating the misuse of prescription painkillers is that there are people who actually need these medicines and suffer acute, mind-numbing pain without them, Prince said.
"You have the families who have lost a loved one to accidental overdoses who are saying, 'You have to get rid of this drug,'" Prince explained. "Then you have the families who have loved ones with multiple sclerosis, and breast cancer who say, 'How could you take that away from them?'"
The office of National Drug Control Policy is working to get the word out about the dangerous consequences of abusing prescription medications. They recently started a pilot program educating patients about misusing drugs they are prescribed to.
"We've been working with pharmacies all over the country who fill prescription drugs," Stone said. "Each time they fill a prescription drug, an information sheet is printed out giving practical advice on how to carefully store and properly dispose of the unused drugs."
So far this program has reached five million people and has started a national policy and an ad campaign that aired during the last Super Bowl.
"There's only one question that needs to be answered in this extreme situation," Prince said. "How do you keep drugs available for people who need them, and divert them from the hands of those who don't?"
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