Jan. 29, 2008
Death by Drug OD #1 Killer Of Young Adults In West Virginia
More Adults Under 45 Die by OD than any other Cause; Car Wrecks, Cancer, Heart Attack Not Tops
An addict 'shoots up'
By Tony Seaton
Huntingtonews.net City Editor
Justin W. [we're not using his real name, even though he has given permission,] is a former stand-out student athlete from Cabell-Midland. He's also addicted to narcotics. "I started off using ''OCs'' he says, using the street slang for OxyContin, the powerful drug prescribed to alleviate severe pain. "I didn't eat Lortabs or anything, I went to using OCs."
Justin is a lucky addict in at least one way, as new studies of toxicology reports indicate that the number one cause of death for young adults in his age group, [he's 26] in West Virginia, is due to overdosing on drugs. West Virginians are more likely to die of drug overdoses than residents of any other state.
And legal prescription drugs are the cause of the bulk of those deaths. That doesn't surprise Nancy Price, director of the Huntington Treatment Center. The center treats addictions of all kinds, not just heroin, as some believe, and through November, 2007, more patients came in addicted to OxyContin than heroin.
Price says the reasons behind this trend are myriad, like the rest of the problem. One reason that stands out, and is widely known amongst those fighting this epidemic of overdoses: Doctor shopping. Often patients who become addicted to drugs they're originally legally prescribed, run into a wall where the doctor, being aware of the potential for misuse and overuse of narcotics, refuses to continue writing the scrip.
So, the patient shops around. Sometimes these patients are legitimately still in severe pain, but they have a pain that's not easily identifiable or quantifiable. Or the MRI scan that might ferret out the pain is not considered to be economically feasible to administer.
Across the U.S., the problem is rampant too. Between 1995 and 2005, the number of deaths from drug overdoses doubled. More than 32,000 people died of drug ODs in 2005, the most recent numbers available for the study cited.
Mixing narcotic opiate meds, like OxyContin, Lortab, Percocet, or, most deadly of all, Fentanyl, either with others of the same family, or with heroin, or even with other, seemingly benign, over-the-counter drugs such as Tylenol can lead to death due to seizure of the central nervous system, or liver failure, since the stronger drugs have amounts of acetaminophen in them as do the over the counter meds.
And of all those drug deaths, Huntington residents know that many are caused by illegal drugs, whether they were once legally prescribed for someone else, the patient uses them 'recreationally' to their ultimate demise, or by the use of flat-out illegal drugs such as heroin. Nancy Price says that although the number of patients addicted to OxyContin is a larger number overall, there has been a spike in heroin addiction.
Heroin overdose is a leading cause of death because of a number of reasons. Our interviews with addicts have shown that one reason is that, according to Justin, "in Huntington you get powdered heroin, it's terrible; you might as well go buy an OC, it's not worth buying." so, Justin, until he was introduced to black tar heroin brought in from Columbus, "and at this time, I was doing like five, six, if not ten, '80s' a day. [80 mgs. which have a street retail cost of around $80 a pill]
But, it's not so easy to get Oxys anymore, as Price's numbers indicate. That's due to a crack down by the DEA on ''over prescribing'' the medication according to government guidelines.
So, coincidentally, what law enforcement is doing to stanch the flow of legal drugs into the streets is only leading more addicts to take that final step to injecting heroin, which, although stats show has not killed as many people by overdose as prescription drugs, is inherently more deadly. That's because heroin crosses the blood–brain barrier more quickly than any other opiate. It occurs within 20 seconds. Toxicity is so prevalent because 68% of the heroin is absorbed into the brain vs. 5% of morphine via injection.
We'll have more on this unfolding tragedy as our series, Huntington's Heroin Habit, continues this week, as seen though the eyes of law enforcement, the medical establishment, emergency medical technicians and other,front line health care providers and perhaps most compelling, the eyes of those who are most affected by it, the addicts themselves.
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More Adults Under 45 Die by OD than any other Cause; Car Wrecks, Cancer, Heart Attack Not Tops
 |
By Tony Seaton
Huntingtonews.net City Editor
Justin W. [we're not using his real name, even though he has given permission,] is a former stand-out student athlete from Cabell-Midland. He's also addicted to narcotics. "I started off using ''OCs'' he says, using the street slang for OxyContin, the powerful drug prescribed to alleviate severe pain. "I didn't eat Lortabs or anything, I went to using OCs."
Justin is a lucky addict in at least one way, as new studies of toxicology reports indicate that the number one cause of death for young adults in his age group, [he's 26] in West Virginia, is due to overdosing on drugs. West Virginians are more likely to die of drug overdoses than residents of any other state.
And legal prescription drugs are the cause of the bulk of those deaths. That doesn't surprise Nancy Price, director of the Huntington Treatment Center. The center treats addictions of all kinds, not just heroin, as some believe, and through November, 2007, more patients came in addicted to OxyContin than heroin.
Price says the reasons behind this trend are myriad, like the rest of the problem. One reason that stands out, and is widely known amongst those fighting this epidemic of overdoses: Doctor shopping. Often patients who become addicted to drugs they're originally legally prescribed, run into a wall where the doctor, being aware of the potential for misuse and overuse of narcotics, refuses to continue writing the scrip.
So, the patient shops around. Sometimes these patients are legitimately still in severe pain, but they have a pain that's not easily identifiable or quantifiable. Or the MRI scan that might ferret out the pain is not considered to be economically feasible to administer.
Across the U.S., the problem is rampant too. Between 1995 and 2005, the number of deaths from drug overdoses doubled. More than 32,000 people died of drug ODs in 2005, the most recent numbers available for the study cited.
Mixing narcotic opiate meds, like OxyContin, Lortab, Percocet, or, most deadly of all, Fentanyl, either with others of the same family, or with heroin, or even with other, seemingly benign, over-the-counter drugs such as Tylenol can lead to death due to seizure of the central nervous system, or liver failure, since the stronger drugs have amounts of acetaminophen in them as do the over the counter meds.
And of all those drug deaths, Huntington residents know that many are caused by illegal drugs, whether they were once legally prescribed for someone else, the patient uses them 'recreationally' to their ultimate demise, or by the use of flat-out illegal drugs such as heroin. Nancy Price says that although the number of patients addicted to OxyContin is a larger number overall, there has been a spike in heroin addiction.
Heroin overdose is a leading cause of death because of a number of reasons. Our interviews with addicts have shown that one reason is that, according to Justin, "in Huntington you get powdered heroin, it's terrible; you might as well go buy an OC, it's not worth buying." so, Justin, until he was introduced to black tar heroin brought in from Columbus, "and at this time, I was doing like five, six, if not ten, '80s' a day. [80 mgs. which have a street retail cost of around $80 a pill]
But, it's not so easy to get Oxys anymore, as Price's numbers indicate. That's due to a crack down by the DEA on ''over prescribing'' the medication according to government guidelines.
So, coincidentally, what law enforcement is doing to stanch the flow of legal drugs into the streets is only leading more addicts to take that final step to injecting heroin, which, although stats show has not killed as many people by overdose as prescription drugs, is inherently more deadly. That's because heroin crosses the blood–brain barrier more quickly than any other opiate. It occurs within 20 seconds. Toxicity is so prevalent because 68% of the heroin is absorbed into the brain vs. 5% of morphine via injection.
We'll have more on this unfolding tragedy as our series, Huntington's Heroin Habit, continues this week, as seen though the eyes of law enforcement, the medical establishment, emergency medical technicians and other,front line health care providers and perhaps most compelling, the eyes of those who are most affected by it, the addicts themselves.
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