Legal drug craze is new killer

[FOTD]

Legal drug craze is new killer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/10/usa?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

Once it was cocaine, speed or heroin, but now the fashion is for legal pills, washed down by spirits. Last week's news that actor Heath Ledger, right, died from an overdose of prescription tablets shed light on a startling new trend - misuse of over-the-counter pills now kills more Americans than illegal drugs. Elizabeth Day in New York


"Whereas illegal street narcotics - heroin or crack cocaine - are more likely to be used by the poorer socio-economic classes, prescription drugs have become the preserve of the rich. In the privatised American healthcare industry, these pills do not come cheaply: an antidepressant like Wellbutrin can cost from $1,000 to $2,400 a year.

Wealthy individuals also enjoy the luxury of paying private physicians - known as 'script doctors' - to provide them with prescriptions. And often, because the drugs are viewed as performance-enhancers, they will be taken by those at the higher end of the social strata: by the college students and Wall Street traders. In the 1980s cocaine was the glamour yuppie drug. Now, the line of white powder is being overtaken by the little white capsule."

Big Pharma provide powerful incentives to doctors and at the same time blitz the airwaves with slick ads for their drugs. Thus, they stumulate demand with both professionals and the public. In many developed countries TV ads for drugs are forbidden, much more stringent than the US. Given the amount of money that big Pharma "contributes" to the political process, it is not really surprising.

As far as the prescription drug problems in this country; Consider big pharma the supplier, and your family doctor, the dealer!



"Doctor Please,
some more of these,
Outside the door,
she took four more,
What a drag it is getting old." Jagger/Richards

[cyndezu]

http://www.cpmission.com/politics/

f.y.i.

[Breadburner]

It's always someone else's fault....

[bigdtottown]

I don't know that I'd call mixing prescription drugs and alcohol a recent phenomenon.  Blaming it on marketing is pretty lame.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by Breadburner

It's always someone else's fault....

Rush Limbaugh?

[Breadburner]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

quote:Originally posted by Breadburner

It's always someone else's fault....

Rush Limbaugh?

Is he a lefty....?

[FOTD]

No, but he's a doper. It was his doctor$ fault....or perhaps his dealer.....righty?

[cannon_fodder]

quote:Originally posted by bigdtottown

I don't know that I'd call mixing prescription drugs and alcohol a recent phenomenon.  Blaming it on marketing is pretty lame.

Elvis, Monroe, Janus...  yeah, I'd say it's been going on for a while.  Though I must agree that the marketing has really been stepped up.  However, as of yet I have managed to elude them and remained free from anti-depressants, penis pills, gas pills, heart pills, indigestion pills, pain pills or even fun pills (they sell fun pills, right?).

Blame marketing for people inventing illness if you want to, but taking drugs for recreation is as old as time itself.

/me goes back to his coffee and fondly looks forward to a Jack and coke during American Idol a Chuck Norris movie on TV tonight.

[FOTD]

Look. The system needs to protect patients from their own undoing. If big pharma and the doctors were really motivated towards that objective rather than profiteering, we'd see fewer complications.

Janis, not to be confused with the investment fund, and many other "victims" received their drugs through the black market. Today, the major distributors are doctors and big pharma in cahoots with each other.

Why are many abused drugs in circulation? The FDA in the past took mass consumed abused pharmacuticals off the shelves. That was before there were tv commercials allowed to help sell drugs.

[cyndezu]

A line must be drawn somewhere.
A doctor cannot police us 24/7
I don't believe any competent dr.
would push pill's. Nor do I see narcotic's advertised on t.v.
Blame Rush Limbaugh if you want,his name was on the bottle and, he was the one that continued to purchase them illegally.  If you abuse your prescription,
you are the one breaking the law.
It's ashame about Heath ledger but I doubt his doctor prescribed him to take everything in the manner he did.

[Conan71]

There are some drugs which I believe are over-prescribed, and there are some doctors out there who really don't give a rat's donkey as long as they get their co-pay and are reimbursed by the insurance company.

Prescriptions for anti-anxiety meds and ADHD meds in pre-teens and teens is an alarming statistic.  I'm still trying to figure out how on earth my generation made it through school without ritalin and xanax. /sarc

No kidding, I had a 24 year old friend who actually talked his GP into prescribing an ED med for him, simply because he wanted to see if he could go all night after he was drunk.  I don't believe that's the story the doc got, but the doc should have been way more skeptical about a 24 year old man complaining of ED.

Not every pill is worthless, and not every doc is a crook, but they do have a responsibility to dispense meds in a responsible fashion.