Detrimental repercussions caused by the epidemic of pill mills in the United States Essay

Abstract

This paper explores the epidemic of pill mills in the United States and the detrimental repercussions that occurred. Prescription painkiller abuse is progressively identified as the fastest growing drug problem in the United States, escalading significantly since the early 2000s, and predominantly involving adolescents and young adults. The increased amount of prescription painkiller use stemmed from the pill mill epidemic. A pill mill is an operation in which a doctor, clinic, or pharmacy prescribes and/or dispenses narcotics without a justifiable medical reason. The harmful effects resulting from the pill mills include higher rates of injuries involving fatal and nonfatal poisonings, greater risk of traffic accidents, higher rates of addiction, increasing crime rate, devastating societal costsand more babies born with neonatal withdrawal syndrome (Kinsell, 2015, pg.15). In early 2011, the government began aggressively cracking down on the pill mill operations in various ways. As a result, it inadvertently fueled a new epidemic of heroin use.

The Overview

The substantial increase in the abuse of prescription painkiller drugs over the past decade has received national attention and has been considered a public health epidemic in the United States. Prescription drugs are medicines filled by a pharmacist and are obtainableonly with written directives from a doctor. Prescription drug abuse is defined by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (2011) as the intentional use of a medication without a prescription in a way other than as prescribed or for the experience or feeling it causes.

Prescription drug abuse affects both men and women, andthose of all ages and nationalities. In 2014, nearly one out of twenty Americans proclaimed they have abused or misused prescription painkillers. While other types of prescription drugs are also frequently abused (central nervous system depressants and stimulants, for example), painkillers are at the center of the prescription drug abuse problem. Prescription painkillers are drugs categorized as opioid analgesics. These medications mitigate pain by lessening the intensity of pain signals that go to the brain. Opioid analgesics include the following common drugs Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Propoxyphene, Hydromorphone, Morphine, Codeine, and Methadone (Shephard, 2014, pg.87).

The main factor that was causing the considerable rise in prescription painkiller abuse is drug diversion, the shift of a controlled substance from a lawful to an unlawful means ofallocation or use. Diversion of prescription painkillers is a chief activity of illegitimate pain management clinics otherwise known as pill mills(Kinsell, 2015, pg.26). A pill mill is an operation in which a doctor, clinic, or pharmacy prescribes and/or dispenses narcotics without a justifiable medical reason. Florida was the unofficial pill mill capital of the country with 93 of the top 100 oxycodonedispensing doctors in the United States (Silvestrini, 2014).

Activities associated with pill mills include doctor and pharmacy shopping, inappropriate prescribing practices, fraud, sharing, dealing or illegal sale, and theft. Pill mills are made possible by physicians and pharmacies illegally prescribing and supplying controlled substances all driven by greed. In the last decade, prescription painkiller sales have escalated by over 300 percent (Shephard, 2014, pg.88).