Prescription Opiates

Since doctors prescribe opiates for pain relief, there are misconceptions about their safety.

According to a 2011 Centers for Disease Control report, legal prescription opiates cause more deaths than overdoses from the combination of heroin and cocaine.

Deaths from prescription pills also exceedthe number of all motor vehicle deaths in the country.

The nation’s largest survey of drug use among youth shows prescription drugs are the most abused substance behind marijuana. Users may quickly become addicted. Because with more use, tolerance levels increase, thereby causing the need for more medicine to alleviate the pain. These drugs affect the same brain systems as illicit drugs, which can lead to addiction, overdose and death.Unintentional drug dependence has horrifying consequences, including an intensely painful withdrawal experience. After being prescribed Vicodin and OxyContin, Chris McKay became addicted. His tolerance level soared, forcing him to needup to 40 pills a day.

Once his prescription ran out, he began to seek ways of obtaining the drug or substitutes, such as heroin. Heroin is the illegal substitute for prescribed pain killers and plays a key role in the progression of opiate addiction.Available on the streets, it is incredibly cheap and easily accessible as opposed to prescribed pills. McKay had to seek help to battle his opiates and benzodiazepine dependence.

Even though McKay is an adult who struggled with addiction, teens and young adults make up the next wave of users. Prescription drugs are easily accessible to teens, who can get them as easily as rummaging through their medicine cabinet at home, through friends and classmates, or through illegal Internet pharmacies.

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