NARCONON REVIEWS EMERGENCY ROOM STATS
According to this article in Join Together, recently reviewed by Narconon, twice as many people are going to the emergency room because of prescription drug abuse as there were five years ago. In fact, for the third year in a row, prescription drugs outrank illegal drugs in this regard. This information, reported in a press release by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, comes with more alarming data; almost half of these visits were caused by adverse reactions to legal drugs as prescribed! This information goes straight into the teeth of the debate as to whether many doctors are educated well enough to be given free reign with their prescription pads. It is a fair question -2.3 million people went to the emergency room within a year’s time, because they were taking their medication as prescribed. Here is the article:
“Federal data shows that prescription drug abuse now sends twice as many people to the emergency room (ER) as it did five years ago — outstripping illegal drugs for the third year in a row, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) reported in a Jan. 6 press release.
The data come from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), which provides estimates on emergency room visits linked to drug use and abuse. DAWN data from 2009 showed almost 4.6 million total visits to emergency rooms that were drug-related, of which 45.1 percent were linked to abuse and misuse of drugs, both legal and illegal.
Nearly a third (27.1 percent) of all visits — or 1.2 million visits — were due to prescription drug abuse, an increase of 98.4 percent from the 627,291 visits recorded in 2004. Illicit drug use accounted for 1.0 million visits to emergency rooms, and alcohol was implicated in 31.8 percent of all visits related to abuse or misuse of drugs. http://www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2011/er-visits-due-to.html
Frequently, at Narconon we do treat individuals who were taking their medication “as prescribed”. Due to lack of a national data base, some were taking their medication “as prescribed” by several doctors. In other words, they were doctor shopping and had prescriptions from various doctors. The doctors who help cause the debacle are not usually the ones to pick up the pieces. It is the families and unfortunately, sometimes the mortician. Those who are lucky make it to treatment.
Narconon drug rehab will continue to treat those with prescription drug abuse problems as effective as possible, while at the same time, promoting proper drug education for doctors and clients.