Narcotic Overdose Deaths Quadrupled
in the Last Decade
October 02, 2014
Story at-a-glance
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Deaths from overdoses of drugs like hydrocodone (Vicodin),
morphine, and oxycodone (Oxycontin) rose from 1.4 per
100,000 in 1999 to 5.4 per 100,000 in 2011
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Among people aged 55 to 64, deaths from prescription
narcotic overdoses increased from one per 100,000 people in
1999 to more than 6 per 100,000 in 2011
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Benzodiazepines such as Xanax, which are sedatives used to
treat anxiety and insomnia, accounted for 31 percent of the
narcotic overdose deaths in 2011 (up from 13 percent in
1999)
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Separate research shows that the use of benzodiazepines has
risen alongside the use of opioids, and the sedatives are
often used alongside the painkillers to enhance the “high”
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Opioid painkillers and benzodiazepines topped the list of
medications most often responsible for young children’s
hospitalizations (after accidental ingestion)
By Dr. Mercola
Earlier this year, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the U.S.
Office of National Drug Control Policy stated that the use of
narcotic painkillers and other opioids is "having a devastating
impact on public health and safety in communities across the
nation."1
The powerful drugs, which have their place in treating
short-term severe pain, such as that which occurs after surgery
or serious accidents, are now widely used for treating
chronic pain problems, like headaches and back pain.
As pain is one of the most common health complaints in the
US, record numbers of Americans are, sadly, now becoming drug
addicts in an attempt to live pain-free. According to 2010 data,
there were enough narcotic painkillers being prescribed in the
US to medicate every single adult, around the clock, for a
month.2
By 2012, a whopping 259 million prescriptions for opioids and
other narcotic painkillers were written in the US, which equates
to 82.5 prescriptions for every 100 Americans.3
We've been seeing the fallout from this overprescribing for a
number of years now, but new federal data revealed that the
problem is getting worse instead of better.
Deaths from Narcotic Painkillers Rise Four-Fold in a Decade
A report from the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) revealed that deaths from overdoses of drugs
like hydrocodone (Vicodin), morphine, and oxycodone (Oxycontin)
rose from 1.4 per 100,000 in 1999 to 5.4 per 100,000 in 2011.4
This equates to about 3,000 such deaths in 1999 and close to
12,000 just over a decade later.
Despite the significant jump, the report's co-author, Dr.
Holly Hedegaard, an epidemiologist at CDC's National Center for
Health Statistics (NCHS), pointed out that the rate of increase
has slowed from about 18 percent a year in 2006 to 3 percent a
year more recently.5
Still, the rate is still on the rise, and increases among
certain populations were striking. For instanc
- Among people aged 55 to 64, deaths from prescription
narcotic overdoses increased from one per 100,000 people in
1999 to more than 6 per 100,000 in 2011
- The number of opioid deaths among white people increased
by 4.5 times during the study period
- The number of opioid deaths among African Americans
doubled during the study period
Opioids Combined with 'Benzos' Make Up More Than 30 Percent of
Narcotic Deaths
Opioids aren't the only type of narcotic included in the CDC
data. Benzodiazepines such as Xanax, which are sedatives used to
treat anxiety and insomnia, accounted for 31 percent of the
narcotic overdose deaths in 2011 (up from 13 percent in 1999).
Separate research shows that the use of "benzos" has risen
alongside the use of opioids, and the sedatives are often used
alongside the painkillers to enhance the "high."6
If you're wondering just how deadly opioids and benzos can
be, earlier this year the state of Ohio used an opioid/benzo mix
in a death-row execution after it couldn't obtain the
conventionally used drugs.7
Despite their known risks, preliminary research presented at
the 2014 meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine in
Phoenix, Arizona also found that 12.6 percent of all primary
care visits made by Americans between 2002 and 2009 involved
prescriptions for sedatives and/or narcotic painkillers
(opioids).8
The study also found:
- The number of prescriptions for sedative drugs rose by
12.5 percent a year
- Patients receiving a narcotic painkiller were 4.2 times
more likely to receive a second prescription for a sedative
- The number of joint prescriptions of opioids and
sedatives also increased by 12 percent a year in that time
frame
- Prescription sedatives and narcotic painkillers are
responsible for at least 30 percent of narcotic
painkiller-related deaths
- Besides deaths caused by overdose, other risks
associated with sedative use include falls in the elderly,
emergency room visits, and drug dependence
Drug Companies Sued for Creating an Epidemic of Prescription
Drug Abuse
Chicago and two California counties—Orange and Santa
Clara—have filed a lawsuit against five drug companies that
manufacture OxyContin, charging them with contributing to an
epidemic of drug abuse. The two California counties are suing on
behalf of the entire state.
In Santa Clara County, the death rate for opioid overdoses
has tripled in the last decade, and according to assistant
County Counsel Danny Chou, this is all due to a "decades-long
marketing plan" by drug companies "to create a market for these
drugs that never should have existed" in the first place.9
According to Chou, Santa Clara spends millions of dollars to
treat overdoses and addiction in its public hospitals, and he
wants the drug makers to pay for these costs—just like tobacco
companies were forced to pay after being sued in the 1990s.
The lawsuit accuses the drug companies of purposefully
downplaying the risks of these drugs, and secretly funding front
organizations, like the American Pain Foundation, to promote the
use of painkillers.
Interestingly, a 2011 Journal Sentinel/MedPage Today
investigatio discovered that a University of Wisconsin-based
organization called Pain & Policy Studies Group—which had
received $2.5 million from makers of painkillers over the past
decade—had been a "national force" pushing for expanded use of
opioids.10
This group has also warned against increasing
regulations of these dangerous drugs.
The largest funder of the UW Pain Group was Purdue Pharma,
which donated about $1.6 million to the group. Purdue actually
ended up having to pay fines and restitution payments to the
tune of $635 million after the US Department of Justice accused
the company of misleading doctors with fraudulent claims back in
2007. The company promoted OxyContin as "less addictive, less
likely to cause withdrawal, and less subject to abuse" compared
to other pain medications—claims for which they had no proof.
Intense Drug-Company Marketing of Opioids Goes Back to the 1950s
The epidemic of prescription overdose deaths is a relatively
new problem, but it's one that been decades in the making, as
reported by a Journal Sentinel/MedPage Today
investigation.11
"There is little to no evidence demonstrating the
efficacy of opioids for chronic pain -- and even less to
support the use of opioids plus benzodiazepines, yet as far
back as the late 1950s, drug companies ramped up large-scale
marketing efforts. The cornerstone of that marketing blitz
was a series of advertisements in prominent medical journals
directed at doctors -- a campaign that continued through the
1980s.
A Journal Sentinel/MedPage Today review of
the ads found they often made questionable claims that
tranquilizers were good for ailments including menopause,
gastrointestinal problems, ulcers, and cardiovascular
symptoms. In the case of benzodiazepines, institutionalized
dispensing of the drugs over the years also is linked to
promotional activities of drug companies, a Journal
Sentinel/MedPage Today investigation found."
Children are Also at Risk from Opioids and Benzos
About 9,500 children younger than 6 are hospitalized each
year after ingesting family members' medications. Among them,
three-quarters are between the ages of 1 and 2. Likely echoing
the sharp rise in adults' use of opioids and benzodiazepines,
both opioid painkillers and benzos topped the list of
medications most often responsible for young children's
hospitalizations.
And in terms of single active ingredients, the most common
implicated in children's hospitalizations was buprenorphine, a
narcotic that, ironically, is used in medications to treat
addiction to opioids. That was responsible for 8 percent of the
hospitalizations alone.12
According to the study:13
"Emergency department visits and subsequent
hospitalizations of young children after unsupervised
ingestions of prescription medications are increasing
despite widespread use of child-resistant packaging and
caregiver education efforts… Opioids (17.6%) and
benzodiazepines (10.1%) were the most commonly implicated
medication classes."
The researchers stated that "focusing unsupervised ingestion
prevention efforts on medications with the highest
hospitalization rates may efficiently achieve large public
health impact," but an even better solution may be to curb the
rampant overuse of these powerful medications in the first
place.
19 Non-Drug Solutions for Pain Relief
I strongly recommend exhausting other options before you
resort to an opioid pain reliever. The health risks associated
with these drugs are great, and addiction is a very
real concern. CDC Director Tom Frieden, put the serious danger
of using narcotic painkillers even one time into perspectiv
"Patients given just a single course may become addicted for
life," he recently warned.14
Below, I list 19 non-drug alternatives for the treatment of
pain. These options provide excellent pain relief without any of
the health hazards that prescription (and even
over-the-counter) painkillers carry. This list is in no way
meant to represent the only approaches you can use.
They are, rather, some of the best strategies that I know of.
I do understand there are times when pain is so severe that a
prescription drug may be necessary. Even in those instances, the
options that follow may be used in addition to such drugs, and
may allow you to at least reduce your dosage. If you are in pain
that is bearable, please try these first, before
resorting to prescription painkillers of any kind. And if you
are considering a benzodiazepine for anxiety, please try these
natural solutions for anxiety first.
- Medical cannabis has a long history as
a natural analgesic.15
At present, 20 US states have legalized cannabis for medical
purposes. Its medicinal qualities are due to high amounts
(about 10-20 percent) of cannabidiol (CBD), medicinal
terpenes, and flavonoids. As discussed in this
previous post, varieties of cannabis exist that are very
low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—the psychoactive component
of marijuana that makes you feel "stoned"—and high in
medicinal CBD. The Journal of Pain,16
a publication by the American Pain Society, has a long list
of studies on the pain-relieving effects of cannabis. This
is clearly the single most effective strategy that I know of
as an alternative to reliance on narcotics for pain. If I
had severe pain I would do everything I could to make sure I
had legal access to this.
- Eliminate or radically reduce most grains and
sugars from your diet. Avoiding grains and sugars
will lower your insulin and leptin levels and decrease
insulin and
leptin resistance, which is one of the most important
reasons why inflammatory prostaglandins are produced. That
is why stopping sugar and sweets is so important to
controlling your pain and other types of chronic illnesses.
- Take a high-quality, animal-based
omega-3
fat. My personal favorite is krill oil. Omega-3
fats are precursors to mediators of inflammation called
prostaglandins. (In fact, that is how anti-inflammatory
painkillers work, they manipulate prostaglandins.)
- Optimize your production of vitamin D
by getting regular, appropriate sun exposure, which will
work through a variety of different mechanisms to reduce
your pain.
- Emotional
Freedom Technique (EFT) is a drug-free approach
for pain management of all kinds. EFT borrows from the
principles of acupuncture, in that it helps you balance out
your subtle energy system. It helps resolve underlying,
often subconscious, negative emotions that may be
exacerbating your physical pain. By stimulating
(tapping) well-established acupuncture points with your
fingertips, you rebalance your energy system, which tends to
dissipate pain.
- K-Laser Class 4 Laser Therapy. If you
suffer pain from an injury, arthritis, or other
inflammation-based pain, I'd strongly encourage you to try
out
K-Laser therapy. It can be an excellent choice for many
painful conditions, including acute injuries. By addressing
the underlying cause of the pain, you will no longer need to
rely on painkillers. K-Laser is a class 4 infrared laser
therapy treatment that helps reduce pain, reduce
inflammation, and enhance tissue healing—both in hard and
soft tissues, including muscles, ligaments, or even bones.
The infrared wavelengths used in the K-Laser allow for
targeting specific areas of your body, and can penetrate
deeply into the body to reach areas such as your spine and
hip. For more information about this groundbreaking
technology, and how it can help heal chronic pain, please
listen to my previous interview
with Dr. Harrington.
- Chiropractic. Many studies have
confirmed that chiropractic management is much safer and
less expensive than allopathic medical treatments,
especially when used for pain, such as low-back pain.
Qualified chiropractic, osteopathic, and naturopathic
physicians are reliable, as they have received extensive
training in the management of musculoskeletal disorders
during their course of graduate healthcare training, which
lasts between four to six years. These health experts have
comprehensive training in musculoskeletal management.
- Acupuncture can also effectively treat
many kinds of pain. Research has discovered a "clear and
robust" effect of
acupuncture in the treatment of: back, neck, and
shoulder pain, osteoarthritis, and headaches.
-
Physical and massage therapy has been shown to
be as good as surgery for painful conditions such as torn
cartilage and arthritis.
- Astaxanthin is one of the most
effective fat-soluble antioxidants known. It has very potent
anti-inflammatory properties and in many cases works far
more effectively than anti-inflammatory drugs. Higher doses
are typically required and you may need 8 mg or more per day
to achieve this benefit.
- Ginger: This herb has potent
anti-inflammatory activity and offers pain relief and
stomach-settling properties. Fresh ginger works well steeped
in boiling water as a tea or grated into vegetable juice.
-
Curcumin: In a study
of osteoarthritis patients, those who added 200 mg of
curcumin a day to their treatment plan had reduced pain and
increased mobility. A past study also found that a turmeric
extract composed of curcuminoids blocked inflammatory
pathways, effectively preventing the overproduction of a
protein that triggers swelling and pain.17
- Boswellia: Also known as boswellin or
"Indian frankincense," this herb contains specific active
anti-inflammatory ingredients. This is one of my personal
favorites as I have seen it work well with many rheumatoid
arthritis patients.
- Bromelain: This enzyme, found in
pineapples, is a natural anti-inflammatory. It can be taken
in supplement form but eating fresh pineapple, including
some of the bromelain-rich stem, may also be helpful.
- Cetyl myristoleate (CMO): This oil,
found in fish and dairy butter, acts as a "joint lubricant"
and an anti-inflammatory. I have used this for myself to
relieve ganglion cysts and a mild annoying carpal tunnel
syndrome that pops up when I type too much on non-ergonomic
keyboards. I used a topical preparation for this.
- Evening primrose, black currant, and borage
oils: These contain the essential fatty acid gamma
linolenic acid (GLA), which is useful for treating arthritic
pain.
- Cayenne cream: Also called capsaicin
cream, this spice comes from dried hot peppers. It
alleviates pain by depleting the body's supply of substance
P, a chemical component of nerve cells that transmits pain
signals to your brain.
- Methods such as yoga,
Foundation Training, acupuncture, meditation, hot and
cold packs, and other
mind-body techniques can also result in
astonishing pain relief without any drugs.
- Grounding, or
walking barefoot on the earth, may also provide a
certain measure of pain relief by combating inflammation.
Copyright 1997- 2014 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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