Fighting growing prescription addiction

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Being a new mom is supposed to be joyful, but six years ago Julie's life went downhill.

"After I had my daughter I had severe feet pain," said Julie, who asked to withhold her last name for the sake of anonymity. 

Over-the-counter pain relievers were not cutting it so she went to the doctor. He prescribed her a real low dose of Vicodin. Julie's tolerance quickly surpassed two pills a day.

"It was quite fascinating how easy it was to get more from my doctor," said Julie.

Six months later her doctor prescribed Percocet , a stronger pain killer.

"I was going to several doctors getting different prescriptions at several pharmacies, getting them filled at different pharmacies and it became a full time job just to manage my addiction," said Julie.

At her worst, Julie was swallowing 20 to 30 pills a day. Her doctor shopping could have been detected under the state's recently expanded prescription monitoring program .

In September 2008, new legislation went into effect which required the Department of Public Safety to look for patterns of abuse on a larger number of addictive medications. Pharmacies electronically submit prescription history on hydrocodone such as Vicodin, muscle relaxers like Valium and Xanax and cough syrups such as Premethazine with Codeine.

"We had no idea that it was as bad as it is," said Patrick Knue, Texas Prescription Program Administrator. "There's a lot of folks that are engaged in this crime."

From January to June of this year the state has helped with more than 2,000 investigations.
DPS, doctors, pharmacies, and law enforcement can access everything someone has been prescribed, including how much and whcih doctor prescribed what in the last year.

Patients are not the only ones under the radar.

"If there is a doctor writing script for those types of medications more than any other or a pharmacy filling them more than any other, then that may cause us to take a look," said Knue.

The program is working, but not as well as it should be. Requests for information have to be in writing, and responses come the next business day. Immediate access to a patient's history is often needed.

"It's a state agency. We're open Monday through Friday and if a doctor, or an ER doctor has a patient come in on the weekend, they're not gonna get the data until they ask us on Monday," said Knue.

Knue said secure information accessible around the clock online is in the works, but funding has slowed down the web-based system.

The data is key for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who just added a pharmaceutical team in Austin. Lead Austin Agent Greg Thrash said local federal agents already have their hands full going after organized groups stockpiling pills to sell on the street and online.

"The drug of choice for first time drug users is now prescription drugs whereas it used to be marijuana," said Thrash.

For many there is life after addiction. Julie sought help from a medical detox facility after she realized hauling around her new child to various doctors and pharmacies was not healthy. Julie now works at Austin Recovery helping others get clean.

"I probably receive 10 phone calls a day just for prescription pills, and it's people saying, 'I don't know what to do,"' said Julie.

It is a daily reminder of where she once was, but keeps her grateful to have four years of sobriety under her belt.

 

The National Drug Control Strategy , released in May, outlines the following steps to address prescription drug abuse.
 

• Increasing prescription drug return, take-back, and disposal programs.
• Educating physicians about prescribing opiate painkillers.
• Expanding prescription drug monitoring programs to every state. Currently, these programs are operating in 34 states.
• Assisting states in addressing doctor shopping and pill mills.
• Driving illegal Internet pharmacies out of business.
• Cracking down on rogue pain clinics that do not follow appropriate prescription practices.