Prescription painkillers are big business in the US, with pharmaceutical companies racing to provide the next big thing to bring in huge profits from an overmedicated American public. Now the Associated Press reports that another drug company has confirmed it has plans to market a new form of hydrocodone. This announcement has experts concerned that this new version of the powerful and addictive painkiller will only worsen an already dangerous national prescription drug problem.

The latest contender is Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals, which says its product, TD Hydrocodone, could be worth as much as $500 million annually in sales. While not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the drug is in the final stages of testing.

Teva isn’t alone in its pursuit of the next popular painkiller. Four companies have been quietly working to develop their own pure forms of hydrocodone, the AP reports. (For those not in the know, hydrocodone is the main ingredient in Vicodin, Lortab and other currently available painkillers.)

While the others have remained quiet about their products in progress, execs at the North American division of Teva offered a preview of TD Hydrocodone during an investors conference in San Francisco recently, boasting that the drug could be on the market soon.

Teva did not divulge details of the drug, but the AP cites documents filed with the National Institutes of Health that show the company has been testing 12-hour, extended-release pills containing up to 45 milligrams of pure hydrocodone. That’s in stark contrast to meds like Vicodin, which are not extended-release and contain no more than 10 milligrams of hydrocodone, mixed acetaminophen or ibuprofen.

Hydrocodone, oxycodone and morphine fall into a category of painkillers known as opiates because they are chemically similar to opium. They are extremely powerful and can create a physical dependence. Users who try to stop can suffer intense withdrawal symptoms, such as muddled thinking, stomach cramps, heart palpitations and nausea.

While many experts in pain management insist opiates are needed for legitimate pain control, especially among the growing elderly population in the US, analysts see a market worth billions.

Of note to those in the field of addiction treatment, the TD in Teva’s TD Hydrocodone is said to stand for “tamper deterrent.” This is in response to the known practice of addicts crushing extended-release opiate pills to get an increased high. As a result, many drug companies are working to develop tamper-resistant technologies to combat abuse.

Prescription Drug Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with prescription drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

The days of the Florida pill mills may soon be coming to an end. In the past, thousands flocked to the state’s more than 1,000 pain clinics to obtain prescription drugs – often illegally – resulting in 89 percent of all the oxycodone sold to practictioners in the US in 2010 being bought by Florida doctors.

Officials are now using tougher laws to change that. In the past year, more than 400 clinics were either shut down or closed their doors, and prosecutors indicted dozens of pill mill operators, suspending the licenses of nearly 80 doctors for prescribing mass quantities of pills without clear medical need.

New laws are also cutting off distribution. As of July, Florida doctors are barred, with a few exceptions, from dispensing narcotics and addictive medicines in their offices or clinics. As a result, doctors’ purchases of oxycodone, which reached 32.2 million doses in the first six months of 2010, fell by 97 percent in the in the first half of 2011.

As doctors face tough new restrictions, law enforcement agencies are turning their attention to pharmacies. The number of applications to open new pharmacies in Florida has nearly doubled in the past two years, accounting for up to half of all the requests in the entire country, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Violators, whether they are pharmacists, doctors or clinic owners, face stiffer, swifter penalties if they prescribe or distribute legal narcotic drugs to people who do not need them or without following required steps. In one case, a Florida doctor who worked at one of the pain clinics was even charged with murder when a patient died of an overdose in 2009 a few hours after the doctor prescribed him 210 pain pills. And this wasn’t an isolated case. Prosecutors say the clinics in question were responsible for 56 overdose deaths.

Charging a doctor and a clinic owner with homicide “was a game changer,” said Sheriff Ric L. Bradshaw of Palm Beach County. “You are not going to get a slap on the wrist. You are looking at life in prison.”

Prescription Drug Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with prescription drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about drug treatment, financing or insurance.

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s paying attention that prescription drug abuse is rampant in the US. Pill mills and unethical doctors make it easy for addicts to get a quick – and legal – fix, as long as they have the cash. One of the tragic results of this rampant abuse of legal drugs is that overdose deaths from powerful painkillers have more than tripled in the past decade.

Prescription painkillers like OxyContin, Vicodin and methadone contributed to nearly 15,000 deaths in 2008. That’s more than three times the 4,000 deaths in 1999. Those troubling stats come from a new government report released by the CDC that illustrates the danger in big, clear numbers.

And the problem isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly five percent of Americans ages 12 and older say they’ve abused prescription painkillers. The study also
Shows that fatal overdoses were more likely in men and middle-aged adults.

Prescription Drug Abuse Treatment

If you or someone you love is in need of prescription drug abuse treatment, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

It’s official. Dr. Conrad Murray has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson, which could result in up to four years in prison. While that’s little comfort for Jackson’s family and fans, who hold the doctor responsible for the pop star’s death at age 50, the news gets even worse. It’s unlikely Murray will spend much time in jail at all. His lack of a prior criminal record and overcrowding in California’s prisons may find the infamous doctor serving far less than the maximum. He could even get only house arrest or probation.

Not that there won’t be other penalties. Following the verdict, Judge Michael Pastor ordered Murray remanded into custody while he awaits sentencing, citing “public safety” concerns for sending the disgraced doctor to jail. Murray’s felony conviction will also result in the automatic suspension of his medical license in California. And now that the criminal case is over, civil cases against Murray seem a certainty.

Michael Jackson died June 25, 2009 while preparing for a highly anticipated comeback tour. Murray was accused of causing the singer’s death by administering the powerful anesthetic Propofol and not properly supervising his patients or taking proper steps after Jackson stopped breathing. The drug, usually used only in a hospital setting, was supposedly administered to help Jackson sleep.

The judge made his feelings clear as the trial closed. “This is not a crime involving a mistake of judgment,” Pastor said. “This is a crime where the end result was the death of a human being.”

Drug Abuse

If you or someone you love needs help with drug addiction, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

In recent years, doctors have seen a steady stream of patients seeking Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug prized for its swift calming effect. The clamor for the drug, and concern over the striking number of overdoses involving Xanax and the growing problem of prescription addiction, are leading some doctors to take the unusual step of limiting or stopping Xanax prescriptions altogether.

The drug, and its generic version, alprazolam, has steadily risen in popularity. While it has helped in some cases when used as prescribed, the widespread use of Xanax has also led to widespread prescription abuse for more than a decade. Those concerned about prescription addiction have focused largely on narcotic painkiller addiction, but benzodiazepines, the class of sedatives that includes Xanax, are also widely misused or abused, often with very negative consequences.

Alprazolam was the eighth most prescribed drug in the nation last year, according to SDI, a data firm that tracks drug sales. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year reported an 89 percent increase in emergency room nationwide related to nonmedical benzodiazepine use between 2004 and 2008.

In hopes of helping to limit the damage, some state- and federally-funded healthcare providers are cutting off prescriptions for controlled substances. Not everyone is on board, though. Other doctors say that refusing to prescribe certain drugs under any circumstance is overly rigid, noting that Xanax helps many people who use it responsibly.

Xanax Abuse Treatment

If you or someone you love is in need of Xanax abuse treatment, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

There’s so much talk about the dangers of prescription addiction these days that many people are afraid to take any prescription painkillers at all for fear of needing to seek prescription drug abuse treatment. For others, who’ve already struggled with and overcome addiction, they know they need to be extremely careful of taking anything that could cause them to relapse. But a new Institute of Medicine report claims that 116 million American adults struggle with chronic pain everyday, and many are to face that pain without narcotic painkillers.

How To Lessen Effects of Drug Addiction

For those battling ongoing pain, there are many natural ways to lessen the effects. Everything from weight loss to yoga, bike riding, stretching, regular icing of the area and taking supplements like fish oil, glucosamine and chondroitin can help. These measures won’t likely make the pain completely disappear, but they can get it the point where it’s tolerable enough to not necessitate the use of painkillers.

The use of narcotic painkillers like Percocet and OxyContin long-term is a much-debated in medical circles and can be quite controversial. On one side are doctors who do everything they can to avoid prescribing opioid painkillers to their patients so they don’t fall into drug addiction, while other doctors, many of them pain medicine specialists, believe narcotics can be used safely on a long-term basis.

Narcotic Painkillers are Addictive

Most doctors agree that narcotic painkillers can be addictive. According to the new Institute of Medicine report, studies show about 3 percent of chronic pain patients who regularly take opioids develop abuse or addiction, and 12 percent develop “aberrant drug-related behavior.” You only have to look at the rates of those seeking OxyContin abuse treatment to recognize it’s a growing problem. Even those who don’t become addicted can become desensitized to the drugs, so they need higher and higher doses to combat the same amount of pain. In time, the pills do little for the pain they are taken to treat.

The important thing is to look for the root of the pain and find ways to alleviate it so that taking medication on an ongoing basis is no longer necessary. One doctor compares it to taking medication for toothache pain without ever bothering to treat the problem with the tooth.

For those who are currently battling chronic pain, Health Magazine offers the following five tips for improving the problem:

1. Exercise
2. Alternative therapies
3. Sleep
4. Supplements
5. Heat and ice

Prescription Drug Treatment

If you or someone you love is battling an addiction to prescription painkillers, call La Paloma to find out more about our opiate abuse treatment programs at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about drug treatment, financing or insurance.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that prescription drug overdose deaths in Florida are up a staggering 265 percent since 2003. It’s statistics like this that have led the White House Office on Drug Control Policy to declare prescription drug abuse the nation’s fastest-growing drug problem.

Addiction and healthcare experts are seeing the problem affect a new and extremely vulnerable group. According to state health records, 635 Florida babies were born addicted to prescription drugs in the first half of 2010 alone. South Florida doctors and intensive care nurses report a dramatic uptick in babies born hooked on pills that their mothers abused while pregnant, CNN.com reports.

Babies born to moms who abused prescription painkillers during their pregnancy go through withdrawal symptoms in the same way so called “crack babies” do. The problems can range from cramps, sweating and rapid breathing to seizures.

Prescription Drug Abuse During Pregnancy

La Paloma and other treatment facilities across the country have seen a dramatic increase in the need for prescription drug abuse treatment as the number of users (and abusers) continues to rise. Unfortunately for these affected babies, moms-to-be or new moms hooked on prescription drugs are usually reluctant to seek help because they’re afraid they’ll lose custody of their newborns. As a result, the babies don’t get the care they desperately need. For women who try to kick their habit during pregnancy, there are other risks. They can’t safely just stop using. They need to be weaned off slowly, under medical supervision, or the baby will go into withdrawal in the womb.

Prescription Drug Abuse Treatment

If you or someone you love is in need of prescription drug abuse treatment, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about painkiller addiction treatment, financing or insurance.

In response to the rise in the use of prescription drugs, the military is cracking down on access, according to The Associated Press. The Army recently limited how many painkillers a soldier can get at one time, with disciplinary action facing troops who violate the restriction.

It’s a first step in trying to curb the growing problem of painkiller abuse among those serving in all branches of the military. The AP cites Army data to make the case that the number of soldiers referred for opiate-abuse treatment has been growing steadily for at least a decade, a time when increasing numbers of troops have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat or training injuries that can cause chronic pain. In addition, The Veterans Administration said more than half of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans report pain issues as they leave active duty military service.

In response, the Army put limits on painkillers in November 2010 by restricting most Schedule II controlled substances. This included narcotics, opiates and amphetamines, which have all been limited to just 30-day prescriptions instead of the more convenient 90-day versions. The policy does make exceptions when it comes to medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Noteworthy is that fact that the new policy doesn’t just impact soldiers, it includes anyone who fills a prescription at an Army hospital or pharmacy, including military spouses, children and retirees.

But does limiting access fix the problem? Not on its own. In June the Army went even further by implementing a policy that would discipline soldiers found using the restricted drugs six months after they were prescribed. To monitor drug addiction, the Army carries out random drug tests among active duty soldiers.

Soldiers testing positive on a drug test are referred to the Army Substance Abuse Program, but they can also be referred based on a commander’s recommendation. Commonly abused opiates include popular pain drugs like oxycodone (sold under the brand name OxyContin) and hydrocodone (brand name: Vicodin).

What is happening among soldiers mirrors the rise in prescription abuse among the general population.

Prescription Drug Treatment

If you or someone you love is battling an addiction to prescription painkillers, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about prescription drug treatment, financing or insurance.

Prescription drug addiction in the south has given way to a new term, “pillbillies.”

A recent article in The Guardian UK profiled this growing group who travels to Florida regularly to score prescription painkillers, no questions asked.

One man they interviewed had come all the way from Kentucky, driving 16 hours overnight. He left the clinic clutching a prescription for 180 30 mg doses of oxycodone. While he insists he hurt his back when he fell off a roof, he shows no signs of injury, even after that long drive from his home state.

He is just one of thousands of “pillbillies,” according to The Guardian, who descend on Florida every year from across the south and east coast. They come from Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, even as far away as Ohio. Others come by the busload on the apocryphally named Oxycodone Express.

Pillbillies’ Profit

Is it about pain relief or profit? The man from Kentucky admits he paid just $275 to the doctor inside the clinic. He’ll then shell out $720 at a pharmacy for his 180 pills, spending just under $1,000 total. Back in Kentucky he can sell each pill for $30, giving them a street value of $5,400 and allowing Chad a clear profit of more than $4,000.

It’s no wonder these clinics have earned the nickname “pill mills.” They churn out patients and prescriptions at record speed, with each doctor seeing up to 100 people per day, adding up to more than $25,000 in daily income.

It’s easy to see how people get caught up in it. It’s also easy for all that money to blind them to the fact that there were 30,000 prescription drug overdoses in the US in 2009.

Prescription Drug Abuse

This abuse of pharmaceuticals has been dubbed “pharmageddon.” It’s stats like that which led to the White House declaring the abuse of prescription drugs the US’s fastest-growing drug problem. Determining just what should be done about this epidemic is far more difficult.

If you or someone you love is battling an addiction or co-occurring disorder, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions about you have about drug rehab, financing or insurance.

Drug addiction is changing in the new millennium. Needles have been traded in for prescription bottles by many abusers, with more than 5 million Americans misusing prescription painkillers in a one-month period in 2009, according to a National Survey on Drug Use and Health. More than 70 percent of those who admitted to abusing prescription drugs said they got the drugs from friends and relatives.

“We believe there are two unique reasons for the growth in prescription drug abuse – easy accessibility to the drugs and the diminished perception of risk,” Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee recently.

Kerlikowske was just one of many witnesses called to describe the skyrocketing addiction statistics and a host of federal and state initiatives designed to curb the problem.

The Plan to End Prescription Drug Abuse

The White House recently released details of a plan to confront prescription drug abuse that emphasizes spreading public awareness of the problem by mandatory education of physicians who prescribe painkillers and also for people who receive the prescriptions.

Many prescription drugs remain in medication cabinets long after they’re needed, so government officials are crafting regulations to carry out a law Congress passed last year that will allow states to enable pharmacies to accept people’s unused prescription drugs for disposal. The DEA has also organized two national prescription drug take-back days to collect unused or expired medications. On the most recent take-back day, Americans turned in 188 tons of unused or expired drugs at sites across the country for disposal.

“Daily, 50 people in our nation die from unintentional prescription opioid overdoses and, daily, 20 times that number are admitted to hospital emergency departments for opioid overdoses,” said John Eadie, director of the Prescription Monitoring Program Center of Excellence at Brandeis University.

Prescription Drug Treatment

With stats like that, these measures are just the beginning of dealing with this ever-growing problem. If you or someone you love is battling an addiction to prescription medications, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have drug rehab, financing or insurance.