How Hollywood is Shining Light on Prescription Drug Abuse

Prescription Drug Addiction and Abuse Facts

Without even examining the media and the highlights on the horrors of current prescription drug addiction and abuse, it is evident that the addiction crisis today in the United States is severe and deadly, especially with women.  All one has to do is examine statistics brought forth by organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Trust for American Health (TAH) to see how dangerous this crisis is.

For example:

• According to a National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) report illicit drug use in the United States has risen to its highest level in eight years in fact.  The NSDUH found that 8.7 percent of Americans aged 12 and older used illicit drugs in the month before the survey, a nine percent rise from the 2008 rate, and a three-hundred percent rise from the 1988 rate.
• The study also highlighted the increase in prescription drug abuse and methamphetamine and ecstasy use too.  Abuse of prescription drugs rose by 12 percent, and abuse of methamphetamine and ecstasy both rose by about one percent.
• About 18 women die every day of a prescription painkiller overdose in the US, with more than 6,600 deaths in the year of 2010 alone.  Every 3 minutes, in fact, a woman goes to the emergency room for prescription painkiller misuse or abuse of some kind or another.
• Nearly 48,000 women died of prescription painkiller overdoses between 1999 and 2010, which is more than any grouping of women who died of any substance abuse issue in any other decade ever.
• Deaths from prescription painkiller overdoses among women have increased by a full 400% at the very least since 1999, compared to an only 265% among men.  Women are being targeted for prescription painkillers, and they are dying from them.
• Women are more likely to have chronic pain, be prescribed prescription painkillers, be given higher doses, and use them for more extended time periods than men are.  Because of the extent of health issues and troubles that women can have, they are targeted more voraciously to be put on prescription drugs than men are.
• In the year of 2013, 22.3% of full-time college students of the age of 18 to 22 were currently using illicit drugs, and 59.4% were current drinkers of alcohol.  The overall rate of the current non-medical use of prescription-type drugs among college students is about five percent of them.