Byline: James T. Mulder Staff writer
A local addiction expert says he's seeing a dramatic rise in the number of patients hooked on the same kinds of prescription drugs that sent national radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh into rehab.
Referrals of patients addicted to the painkiller OxyContin, the drug Limbaugh abused, have doubled so far this year at Tully Hill Alcohol & Drug Treatment Center in Tully, according to Dr. Ronald Dougherty, the facility's medical director. Dougherty said he's also seeing more patients addicted to Hydrocodone, another narcotic pain reliever.
'This stuff is worse than heroin,' he said.
And about half the people treated at Tully Hill last year for prescription drug abuse were doctors, pharmacists, nurses, other health care professionals, Dougherty said.
Most of the patients Dougherty sees start out taking the drug to treat legitimate pain, then develop a tolerance, prompting them to take more and more. By the time they come in for help, some patients who started out on four tablets a day of Hydrocodone are popping 40 pills a day, he said.
Of the 381 people admitted to Tully Hill last year, 41 were addicted to prescription drugs.
About one-third of the 900 people treated annually for drug and alcohol addiction at Crouse Hospital are prescription drug abusers, according to Otto Feliu, who directs the hospital's program.
Nationally, there has been a dramatic surge in prescription drug abuse.
Prescription medications are the most widely abused type of drug after marijuana, according to a national survey recently released by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Last year an estimated 6.2million people, or 2.6 percent of the population ages 12 and older, abused prescription drugs, the survey showed. Of these, 4.4million used narcotic pain relievers, more than 10 times the number of people abusing these drugs in the mid-1980s.
The number of emergency room visits linked to prescription drug abuse soared 163 percent between 1995 and 2002, according to SAMHSA.
'Some people think they are somehow taking something safer if they are taking a prescription drug rather than heroin,' said Leah Young, speaking for SAMHSA. 'They can pick it up at the drugstore and not meet somebody out on the street corner. They don't realize it's an equal narcotic.'
Many of the prescription drug abusers Crouse sees don't start taking drugs to ease legitimate pain, but merely for the narcotic effects, Feliu said. Some addicts have a history of going from emergency room to emergency room where they complain of hard-to-diagnose back pains and ask doctors to prescribe specific drugs, he said.
The prescription of narcotics is tightly regulated in New York. Doctors have to use special forms and their prescribing patterns are monitored by the state.
Some patients try to get prescriptions improperly by visiting lots of doctors.
'They tell the physician the German shepherd swallowed their prescription or they lost it,' Dougherty said. 'When the physicians catch on, they won't treat them anymore. An awful lot of people know how to manipulate doctors.'
Some doctors themselves get hooked. Most lost their licenses to practice in New York.
The Internet has become another source for drugs. Online pharmacies flood the Internet with e-mails advertising OxyContin, Hydrocodone and other drugs without prescriptions. Young, of SAMHSA, said there are no estimates of how many people are buying drugs over the Internet. 'Obviously people are getting drugs wherever they are able to get them.'
Rick Kinsella, president of Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare, a rehab program, said he knows of people who have developed serious addiction problems buying drugs over the Internet.
'It's an unregulated pipeline that certainly is causing problems,' he said.
Prescription drugs are often diverted from their intended patients and sold on the street, according to Dougherty. Doctors frequently prescribe large amounts of OxyContin and other painkillers for patients dying of cancer, he said. Relatives and friends often misappropriate those drugs, which then find their way into the community, he said.
OxyContin is sold on the street for anywhere from $10 a pill to $30 a pill, while Hydrocodone goes for about $5 a pill, according to Dougherty.
Some of the prescription drugs also are being stolen by young people, said Tamara Henry-Kurtz, executive director of the Syracuse Onondaga Drug and Alcohol Abuse Commission.
'What I'm hearing is that kids, especially baby sitters, are walking into other people's houses and taking prescription drugs,' Henry-Kurtz said. 'They will do a bathroom medicine cabinet search.'
The SAMHSA survey showed 4 percent of the nation's 12- to 17-year-olds abused prescription drugs last year.
Limbaugh told his radio listeners last month he became addicted to painkillers after spinal surgery several years ago. His former maid told the National Enquirer she bought thousands of pills for him.
After acknowledging his addiction on the air, Limbaugh went into rehab and is scheduled to return to his program Monday.
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GRAPHIC: Painkiller abuse skyrockets. The Post-Standard. Note: For text see microfilm. Color.
