PRESCRIPTION DRUGS BECOMING CONCERN

WASHINGTON--Four million Americans are abusing prescription drugs,
including sleep-deprived people who become addicted to sedatives and
family members who sell spare pills on the street, the government says.

Pharmaceuticals designed to relieve pain, calm stress or bring on
sleep provide great benefit for millions, but when the drugs are used
for nonmedical reasons they can lead to addiction and damaged health,
said Alan I. Leshner, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Leshner announced at a news conference Tuesday that the NIDA and seven
organizations representing the elderly, pharmacies, drug manufacturers
and patients are starting a campaign to combat what he called "a
dangerous new drug abuse trend" -the nonmedical use of
prescriptions.

Calvin Anthony, vice president of the National Community Pharmacists
Association and one of a group of experts from the prescription drug
industry at the news conference, estimated that misuse and abuse of
medication has more than a $100 billion impact on the nation's health
care costs.

The experts said that many patients taking sedatives, stimulants,
tranquilizers, pain killers or opioids begin to use the pills
inappropriately and can slip into an addiction cycle that dominates
their lives and damages their health.

"Nobody starts out to be addicted," Leshner said.

"While prescription drugs can relieve a variety of medical problems
and improve the lives of millions of American, they can be dangerous,
addicting and even deadly when used nonmedically," he said.

The experts said that patients with chronic pain often keep supplies
of drugs in their homes for legitimate use and in some cases the drugs
are stolen by family members for sale on the street.

Morphine is often used in large doses by patients with terminal cancer
or other conditions and stolen packages of the drug are in high demand
on the street.

Some people recovering from surgery use pain-relievers far longer than
needed and eventually become addicted. Poor sleepers take sedatives
and may mix it with alcohol or other drugs. Eventually, they need more
and more of the drug to achieve the same effect.

Patients habituated to the drugs may "doctor shop" to find physicians
who will prescribe the pills and some addicts will establish accounts
at different pharmacies to disguise the number of pills they are
actually using.

Ritalin, or methylphenidate, a drug commonly used to treat the 3 to 5
percent of America's children with attention-deficit hyperactivity
disorder, is becoming a frequently abused stimulant, NIDA said. The
drug is being crushed and snorted, dissolved and injected, or mixed
with street drugs to create what is called a "speedball." There have
been reports of nonmedical use of methylphenidate in Baltimore,
Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Texas, NIDA said.

Leshner said that while everybody can potentially abuse prescription
drugs, the risk is greatest among women, the elderly and
adolescents.

He said a 1999 study showed that of the 4 million people who used
prescriptions for nonmedical purposes, half were abusing the
medications for the first time that year. This shows prescription
abuse is growing, he said.

An increase in prescription drug abuse has accompanied a rapidly
rising trend in the legitimate use of mood-altering medications. NIDA
said that from 1990 to 1998, new users of pain relievers rose by 181
percent; new use of tranquilizers went up 132 percent; people starting
taking sedatives went up by 90 percent, and the use of stimulants rose
by 165 percent.

The agency said that about 17 percent of Americans age 60 and older
are affected by prescription drug abuse. Leshner said that is because
this age group uses about three times more of the drugs than do young
people.

Women, said Leshner, are two to three times as likely to be diagnosed
as needing drugs, such as sedatives, and are about two times as likely
to become addicted.

Prescription drug abuse among adolescents, age 12 to 17, and among
young adults, 18 to 25, is particularly damaging to health because
"their brains are still developing" and the effects of overuse of the
drugs can be "particularly severe," said Leshner.

Leshner said people who abuse prescription drugs are generally of a
different population group than those who use street drugs such as
heroin, crack or cocaine. He estimated there are about 5 million
"hard-core street addicts."