By Mitch Mitchell, McClatchy Newspapers –
FORT WORTH, Texas — The prescription drug abuse problem starts in our medicine cabinets, and the best way to attack it is to dispose of the old and unused medications stored there.
That’s what Gil Kerlikowske, National Drug Control Policy director, told physicians and other health care professionals at the annual meeting of the Federation of State Medical Boards at the Omni Hotel on Thursday.
“While there is no silver bullet that we can point to that will easily solve this problem, we need to help people understand that this problem is coming in its initial stages out of our medicine cabinets and that abusers are getting the drugs they misuse from their friends and family members for free,” he said.
As abusers become addicts, their habits will change as they get fewer drugs from friends and family and start getting more drugs from multiple doctors (sometimes called doctor shopping) or from doctors who break the rules regarding prescribing narcotics (also called pill mills), he said.
Before Kerlikowske became drug policy director, responsible for coordinating federal drug programs and implementing President Barack Obama’s national drug control strategy, he served nine years as Seattle police chief.
Treatment and education are the most important weapons in the war on drugs, Kerlikowske said. Programs such as the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Initiative — which will take place nationwide on Saturday — not only safely dispose of hundreds of tons of unused prescription drugs through incineration, but it makes people aware of what is stored in their homes, Kerlikowske said.
Kerlikowske said he is not worried about being perceived as soft on crime.
“My law enforcement colleagues don’t talk about a war on drugs anymore,” he said. “They say we can’t arrest our way out of this problem.”
And the problem is huge, Kerlikowske said. Those same colleagues tell him that deaths associated with prescription drug abuse are now greater than shooting deaths and car crashes, Kerlikowske said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has labeled the problem epidemic, he said.
“That’s why I think that prevention programs are so important, and they don’t often get the attention that they should,” he said. “For too long we have looked at the problem as a criminal justice problem and we need to look at this as a public health problem. The recovery issue is particularly important. We need to have programs that will lead to treatment instead of incarceration.”
