Abuse And Abuse Of Prescription Drugs

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CNN stated, “One person dies every 19 minutes from a prescription drug overdose in the United States.” In an effort to combat misuse and abuse of prescription drugs, the Food and Drug Administration is proposing new restrictions that would change the rules for some normally prescribed narcotic painkillers (Bentz).
The increase of addiction to prescription drugs has increased over the past few years. As a result the amount of pharmacy robberies has amplified as well. Certain patients are going to multiple physicians in order to get controlled prescriptions; this is called “doctor shopping.” They are then filling the prescriptions at different pharmacies by paying “out of pocket,” without insurance. Filling prescriptions without insurance and at different pharmacies allows patients to get the medications more frequently. Insurance companies usually limit people from filling prescriptions early (before their medication runs out). It has been too simple to get control prescriptions from doctors in this day and age. Physicians have been arrested for writing narcotic prescriptions unnecessarily and too easily. Some patients even steal prescription pads from the doctor’s offices, in order to write their own prescriptions for controlled medications. It is the pharmacist’s role to spot these “fake” prescriptions. This is a vicious cycle and it needs to be stopped.
Finally in 2012, a law named the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing (I-STOP) was signed in New York to help crack down on prescription drug abuse. The I-STOP law includes a series of requirements to revamp the way prescription drugs are distributed and tracked in New York. Physicians will have to check the registry for a patient’s prescription history. The I-STOP repo...

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...em is already helping to fight Long Island's pain pill abuse epidemic and imparting doctors and pharmacists with knowledge they never had access to before. Three doctors called me today who discharged patients after they learned that the patients were doctor shopping because of I-STOP, so I'd say the system is working out pretty well so far” (Deutsch).
Putting a stop to this situation puts us one step closer to decreasing the numbers of deaths caused by the prescription drug abuse epidemic. It has taken the lives of so many and we cannot sit back and let this continue to occur. This law will allow doctors and pharmacists to access the information they need to make sure that dangerous prescription drugs stay out of the wrong hands. With the new system and the increased amount of drug abuse programs there are, hopefully people can kick the habit get their lives back.

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