"Drug addiction is a disease that can be treated."

When we think of prescription drugs, we may conjure up a picture of a person leading a happier, more healthful life thanks to a tiny miracle pill. At least, this is what the drug companies portray in their advertisements. According to the "real patients" on TV, we too can enjoy more pain-free mornings, walks on the beach, and time with the grandkids.

The pharmaceutical companies, through direct-to-consumer advertising, spend billions trying to convince consumers to take their drugs.

Why are consumers so trusting of major pharmaceutical companies? After all, despite showing the so-called "fabulous" lives led by actors portrayed in their advertisements, pharmaceutical companies are required to disclose the known side effects at some point in the advertisement. We hear it all the time on TV: "XYZ drug has been shown to cause muscle pain, heart attacks, suicide, strokes, liver failure, kidney failure," and the list goes on.

Yet every year, consumers continue to pay for billions of dollars worth of pharmaceutical drugs that could potentially harm them.

The Stigma of Addiction
In addition to all of the side effects you can potentially experience from taking these drugs, some of the drugs are addictive. Prescription drug addiction in the United States is rarely talked about outside the realm of reality show housewives and out-of-control stars trying to make sense of their fame.

Addiction to prescription drugs runs much deeper and affects the lives of those around us, even though we may not know it. In fact, within the past decade, hospitalizations due to overdoses on prescription drugs have increased five times over, and deaths caused by overdosing on prescription drugs have nearly quadrupled. (Source: Abigail Zuger, "A General in the Drug War," The New York Times (June 13, 2001).

Dr. Nora D. Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), has dedicated her entire career to studying addiction. Based on her research, she has found that doctors who prescribe powerful pain medications understand little about pain control. Combine this with pressure from sales people hired by major pharmaceutical companies to push these strong medications, and you have a recipe for disaster.

These pain killers are some of the most addictive prescription drugs available on the market. And "physicians are the nation's pushers," says Volkow.

In 2010 alone, more than 200 million prescriptions were written for these potentially addictive pain medications. Yet, there is no evidence that these drugs are medically necessary for all patients or that they actually help all patients with chronic pain. Rather, the higher the dosage prescribed to the patient, the higher the risk that a patient will suffer an overdose and possibly even die from that overdose. (Source: Abigail Zuger, "A General in the Drug War," The New York Times (June 13, 2001).

Addiction is a Brain Disease
Another issue Dr. Volkow has been dealing with is a stigma towards addiction. Addiction is a disease that affects the human brain and behavior, to the point that a person's intake of drugs is out of control.

Scientists have been studying addiction since the 1930s. Some have characterized addiction as a moral failing and have taken punitive rather than therapeutic actions in an attempt to rid patients of addiction. When punitive actions fail to address the problem, doctors often dismiss addicts as hopeless causes and menaces to society.

Dr. Volkow has been working diligently to try to change this view of addiction. According to Dr. Volkow, "drug addiction is a brain disease that can be treated." Initially, people take drugs voluntarily, but scientists have found through brain imaging studies that addicts have physical changes in the areas of their brains that relate to judgment, decision making, memory, learning, and control. The culprit for this change is dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical in our brains that regulates our reward system, thereby motivating future behavior. All drugs activate this system, creating a chemical issue in some.

Dr. Volkow is quick to point out that addiction is not a moral weakness, but rather is a chemical change in the makeup of a person's brain. She believes that to help those addicted to prescription drugs, we must first change the perception of addiction. In other words, addiction needs to be recognized as a medical problem, not a willpower problem.

Addiction is Expensive
Experts estimate that addiction costs the United States nearly a half a trillion dollars every year. Since 1990, the number of deaths due to overdosing on prescription drugs has increased to more than 27,000 deaths in 2007. Within the past decade, deaths related to overdoses of prescription pain killers have skyrocketed from fewer than 4,000 in 2000 to more than 11,000 in 2007.

An Addiction Epidemic
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), "[t]he United States is experiencing an epidemic of drug overdoses." Emergency room visits due to overdoses doubled over a five year period (2004-2009) to 1.2 million.

In response to these grim statistics, the Obama Administration has launched its plan to address prescription drug abuse, entitled Endemic: Responding to America's Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis. Under the plan, manufacturers must comply with a risk evaluation mitigation strategy to educate patients about the safe use, storage, and disposal of these medicines.

Dr. Volkow is approaching the problem by addressing both the lifesaving capabilities of these drugs and the dangerous qualities they possess. Of balancing the two, Dr. Volkow says "we need to address the needs of patients in pain, while protecting those at risk for substance use disorders." While she knows this will not be easy, she has the advantage of science on her side to show that the problem of addiction is medical, not moral.

To treat addiction, Dr. Volkow is starting at the source, with the nation's physicians. She emphasizes that they need to understand more about the pills they are prescribing. Right now, physicians are "the nation's pushers" when it comes to prescription drugs. While they are not directly paid to prescribe certain pills, they may be invited to conferences in exotic places where they are housed in luxurious accommodations.

Unfortunately, some doctors are also addicted to these prescription drugs. But Dr. Volkow has found that "the best successes in treatment generally are physicians, for they are also the ones with the strongest support."

Know Your Risk & Your Options
Scientists have not yet been able to determine exactly which patients will become addicted to a certain prescription. But scientists have been able to determine ways to lessen the addictive properties of pain relievers, either by reducing the time it takes for dopamine to reach the brain, or by combining them with other drugs to reduce the effect of opiate-associated highs.

If you are worried that after taking a prescription pain killer you may become addicted to it, you should talk with your doctor about alternative pain therapies. Much is still not known about addiction, so it is difficult to predict whether you will become addicted to a prescription drug.

To learn more about prescription drug addiction and the secrets pharmaceutical companies do not want you to know, subscribe to my Pill Mill Monitor blog and download my free book entitled Prescription Drug Safety: 7 Secrets the Pharmaceutical Industry Does NOT Want You to Know.

Don't hesitate to contact Kay Van Wey at (800)489-5082 for a free, no obligation consultation.

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