The supply chain for abuse of highly addictive drugs often can be traced back to a doctor's prescription pad.
So doctors are capitalizing on their unique position to combat the illegal use of prescription drugs by leading a statewide campaign to keep such medicines out of the wrong hands.
The Medical Association of Georgia, a statewide organization that represents some 6,000 physicians, has developed the initiative called Think About It, which kicks off at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville. Gov. Nathan Deal will be the guest speaker.
The program takes a three-pronged approach: creating legislation, educating health care professionals, and providing safe places to dispose of and store prescription drugs.
"It starts with education," said Kristine McCall, director of the Medical Association of Georgia Foundation. "This has been an issue for many years, and the majority of the population, including the medical community, was not aware of it."
The Medical Association of Georgia has found numerous willing partners, including the GBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Georgia Pharmacy Association.
Georgia is believed to be one of the first states where physicians are instituting their own comprehensive prescription drug abuse prevention program. Doctors from other states expressed interest in replicating the idea at an American Medical Association convention this summer, said Dr. Joy Maxey, an Atlanta pediatrician who is co-chairing Think About It.
As a pediatrician, Maxey said she is very aware of the potential for abuse of attention deficit disorder drugs like Ritalin. Her office does not prescribe the medication without a thorough physical and psychological evaluation.
"Certainly, people in pediatrics, family practice and internal medicine are aware of the issue, because we get the phone calls from people seeking medication they don't need," Maxey said.
Nationwide, prescription drug abuse is growing at an alarming rate.
Between 2004 and 2008, the number of people who went to the emergency room after abusing prescription painkillers more than doubled, from 144,644 to 305,885, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Georgia ranked third among states for sales of the painkiller oxycodone to medical practitioners in the first six months of 2010, behind Ohio and Florida, according to the DEA.
The GBI saw a 10 percent uptick between 2009 and 2010 in the number of deaths from overdosing on prescription drugs in the 152 of 159 counties for which it performs autopsies. In fact, prescription drugs caused the vast majority of drug overdose deaths, or 560 of the total 729.
Georgia has seen a flood of pill-seekers in recent years because it is the only Southeastern state without a statewide database that helps physicians and pharmacists crack down on doctor-shopping by tracking the dispensing of prescriptions.
This year, state lawmakers passed a law to create a prescription drug monitoring program. The Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency is responsible for administering the database, but officials there have said it won't be up and running until January 2013.
Prescription painkillers ensnared Justin Williams, 31, of Gainesville when he was 18 years old. He became hooked on Vicodin when a doctor prescribed it to numb the pain of having his wisdom teeth removed. He downed a whole bottle of pills in four days and then started buying 10-15 pills a week on the street.
When that wasn't enough, Williams started doctor-shopping. Eventually, he graduated to selling large quantities of the drug to finance and feed his addiction.
Williams said doctors' inexperience in recognizing addiction was a huge part of the problem.
"I could find dirty doctors that knew what you were coming for that would write you whatever you wanted," Williams said. "And then I would go to doctors that seemed naïve. They really believed that your back hurt."
Williams went into a residential treatment program and got clean when he was 27. Today, he is a program coordinator for Three Dimensional Life, a Gainesville residential treatment center for troubled teenage boys.
He said prescription painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax are the drug of choice for many of the boys.
"If they are not addicted to it, they've definitely done it," Williams said.
Think About It seeks to prevent prescription drugs from getting into the wrong hands by educating physicians, pharmacists and the public.
"It's not hard to figure out how to stop it if we can educate people to safeguard their drugs, take only what they need to avoid addiction and educate doctors not to over-prescribe," said Dallas Guy, a Gainesville businessman who helped design the pilot program.
There are multiple components to the pilot program orchestrated by the Drug-Free Coalition for Hall County:
- Offering continuing medical education to doctors about how to have better discussions with patients about highly addictive drugs they prescribe.
- Talking with pharmacists about potentially adding warning labels to controlled substances and offering educational materials to customers.
- Coordinating more drug take-back events or take-back locations where medicines can be disposed of safely.
- Encouraging hardware stores and pharmacies to stock prescription drug lockboxes and working with developers to install them in new homes.
- Scheduling speaking engagements at schools, PTA meetings, and civic and religious gatherings about the dangers of prescription drugs.
Organizers plan to roll out the program statewide sometime next year.
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