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| Wilson Works to Prevent Prescription Drug Addiction |
March 04, 2004 |
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Lawmaker Concerned about Rise in Abuse & Lack of Monitoring
Washington, DC – In a Congressional hearing today, Congresswoman Heather Wilson called attention to a rise in overdose fatalities in New Mexico and called for consideration of more monitoring of legal prescription drug distribution.
“Addiction to prescription drugs is a problem that can affect anyone. While statistics show illicit drug use is declining overall, abuse of legal drugs is on the rise,” said Wilson, speaking in today’s hearing of the House Health Subcommittee. The hearing was entitled “Prescription Drug Monitoring: Strategies to Promote Treatment and Deter Prescription Drug Abuse.”
Wilson illustrated the growing problem with the news account of a 57-year-old professional Albuquerque woman. A child psychologist and grandmother, the woman began abusing legally obtained prescription anti-anxiety medications. (The Albuquerque Journal, “Prescription Drug Abuse Growing, Doctors and Addicts Agree,” by Jackie Jadrnak, 11/24/2004). The woman eventually lost her job and bottomed out in a detox center, before beginning to reclaim her life through an Albuquerque support group.
“New Mexico’s prescription drug monitoring program was terminated in 2000. Such a monitoring program may have detected the multiple prescriptions this woman was receiving from more than one doctor,” Wilson continued. “In fact, the number of deaths due to overdoses in New Mexico has slowly risen from 2.7 per 100,000 in 1998 to 3.8 per 100,000 in 2002. It is uncertain if the termination of the monitoring program has had a direct correlation with the slow but steady increase in pharmaceutical abuse in the state.”
New Mexico Poison and Drug Control Center had 81 calls in the last two years about people who had overdosed on Oxycontin, Lortab or Vicodin.
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