New Project: The Prescription Epidemic

Jan. 22, 2012
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Today we’re publishing The Prescription Epidemic, a set of reports on the human cost of prescription drug addiction in Washington State. The project is the result of a six-month investigation led by InvestigateWest's Carol Smith into the origins of the epidemic, the challenges it poses for communities going forward, and what lessons other states might learn.

You can read the resulting work this morning in The Spokesman-Review and on Crosscut.com, as well as here on our website. This project also marks our fourth collaboration with PBS affiliate KCTS-9. Monday, Jan. 30 at 9 p.m., KCTS is airing a documentary we co-produced on the faces of this addiction.

Prescription pain medications kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined, and in a pill-happy culture, the trend shows few signs of reversing.

Washington State has been at the epicenter. The state’s residents are among the highest consumers of prescription pain meds in the country. They are also dying from prescription overdoses at a rate of two people a day, one of the highest rates in the nation.

At the beginning of this month, the strictest prescribing law in the country went into effect. But many loopholes in the system remain. Public health experts around the country are watching what happens, and tracking other innovative pilot programs here aimed at cutting abuse.

Let us know what you think. Share your own stories on our Facebook page. And stay tuned this week as we release more documents, maps, data, and interviews on the prescription epidemic.

Comments

Submitted by ROBERT NEWMAN, MD MPH (not verified) on Jan. 23, 2012.
One critically important fact about the dangers associated with methadone for analgesia has not been mentioned in your current series: during the period of steepest increase in prescribing of methadone for pain management, and the associated rise in deaths, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended a dose that unequivocally can be lethal for the patient beginning treatment. In Nov. 2006 FDA dropped its recommendation from a range of up to 80 mg/day to 30 mg (a dose still in effect, though it is four times higher than that suggested by the American Academy of Pain Medicine). Inexplicably, the 2006 change was made without any notice – then or since - to healthcare providers or the public. It is not unlikely that to this day many physicians throughout the nation continue to rely on decades-long, potentially deadly, FDA guidelines. This would seem a logical initial focus for health authorities in Washington and throughout the country, even as they plan for other ways to stem the tragic death toll. Additional info happily provided.