Are Doctors Unprepared for Effectively Treating Drug or Alcohol Addiction?

Statistics on the Issue of Treating Drug Addiction

The following statistics showcase areas of substance abuse in the nation that is climbing, just as the need for treating drug addiction is on the rise.

These statistics are all handpicked because they all showcase some aspect of the current American drug problem that doctors, (and parents), could be doing something about, but that for the most part nothing is being done about it:

• The use of amphetamine drugs, (including misused prescription medication such as Adderall and Ritalin), increased among high school seniors to a level of 8.2 percent, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). While that statistic alone could have been influenced by several factors, the over-medication by doctors of certain students who can then sell excess meds to other students is under suspicion. Among high school students too, OxyContin use for non-medical purposes skyrocketed.
• The decade ending in 2010 saw a significant drop in parents who were proactive in communicating an anti-drug message to their children. In fact, slightly more than 30 percent of surveyed parents admitted to avoiding the subject altogether in fact. Adding more concern to these issues were the parents who did not monitor the use of over-the-counter drugs found in their medicine cabinet. Although one in ten teens confessed to using cough syrup to get high, only half the parents were paying attention to the amount consumed by their kids.  Obviously parents need to keep a closer eye on their kids.
• The rapid rise in the prescription drug epidemic combined with a decrease in perceived harm of certain classes of drugs has brought about deaths from drug overdose that have been rising steadily and are now the leading cause of injury death in the U.S. Sadly, people don’t seem to see prescription drugs for the dangers that they really are.
• According to the organization of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every day in the United States, 114 people die as a result of drug overdose, and another 6,748 are treated in emergency departments, (also known as EDs), for the misuse or abuse of drugs. Nearly 9 out of 10 poisoning deaths are caused by drugs too.  Almost all of this comes from prescription drugs too, not illegal street drugs!
• Americans are dying due to drug abuse more frequently than they ever have before, in part because only a mere 1 in 10 people with a substance abuse problem receives the help they need.  If more addicts received help, then more lives would be saved.
• A report done in the year 2012 by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse revealed that medical schools devoted little time to teaching addiction-related science to doctors.  It actually totaled out to only a few hours over four years. Since then, the number of Americans overdosing from prescribed opioids has surpassed 14,000 per year, quadrupling from 1999 to 2014 in fact, and making itself out to be the worst substance abuse problem in the history of the nation.