Dr. Stephen R. West, a cardiologist and President of the Florida State Medical Association had an interesting editorial in the Tallahasee paper today, March 20, 2009. Here is part of what Dr. West's editorial reads:
Florida's rates of prescription drug abuse have skyrocketed to the point that prescription drug overdose deaths surpass the number of all illicit drug overdose deaths combined. Every day, five to seven Floridians die as a direct result of prescription drug overdoses. Drug diversion and "doctor shopping" are at the heart of this unfortunate trend, and the more prescribers in the market, the greater the potential for abuse of the system.
You can read the rest of the article by clicking here.
This is article #15 in a series on Drugs kill.
1 comment:
This year in Washington State, a bill was introduced to create a drug “takeback” program, that would give the citizens of WA a secure place (a drug store or local clinic) to take their expired and unused drugs for proper disposal.
This bill was endorsed by many local governmental agencies (including law enforcement), non-profits, Bartell Pharmacies, Group Health Medical group, and the WA State Board of Pharmacies.
On the other side was the Pharmaceutical Industry – they sent about 40 lobbyists to stop the bill from one small state from passing. The amount of money they spent on lobbyist probably could have paid for the proper disposal of all the drugs collected.
Needless to say, the bill failed to pass - but the bill to allow the sales of Washington State wines in the Capital Building gift shop passed with no objections.
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