Prescription Drug Abuse a Growing Problem in Ohio
Posted on February 12, 2010To say there is a problem with prescription medications in the United States would be an understatement. A recent piece in the Dispatch reported that Ohio pharmacists filled 2.7 million prescriptions in 2008 for such painkillers as OxyContin and Percocet. This amount equates to nearly one for every four people in the state.
Pharmacists also filled 4.8 million prescriptions for hydrocodone medications such as Vicodin, which is one for every 2.5 people in the state. At the same time, the county jails within the state are full of people who have illegally sold or abused such drugs.
In Adams County, the sheriff rented vans and shipped his prisoners to community centers throughout southern Ohio country to make room in his jail for 28 people rounded up in a prescription-drug sting. This growing problem in the southern part of the state now had Scioto County on a federal Drug Enforcement Administration watch list of the 10 most significant places in the county for trafficking in medications.
Authorities say drug abuse is bad in this part of the state due to poverty, location and apathy. Scioto County’s unemployment rate stands at 15 percent; its location along Rt. 23 puts it in close proximity to Columbus and the states of Kentucky and West Virginia, which both have significant prescription- drug abuse problems; the area is wrought with limited resources and uncooperative elected officials who refuse to help with investigations.
According to law enforcement across the state, there isn’t enough money or legal authority to get to the heart of the problem, which they identify as rogue doctors who write the prescriptions and the shady pharmacists who fill them.
