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One of the main flaws with the drug war is its singular focus on supply rather than demand. As long as there is a demand for illicit drugs, suppliers will find a way to satisfy it. And the demand is overwhelming. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times by Lisa Girion and Doug Smith, prescription drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States.
While the idea that prescription drug overdoses and other drug related deaths now outnumber the deaths on American roads is sure to be a shock to some, it's actually nothing new.
Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death as far back as 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The year 2009 is the most recent year for which the CDC has been able to crunch numbers based on reported data.
Most major causes of preventable death are declining. Deaths related to drugs are not.
And the situation is getting much worse. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes. By contrast, traffic accidents have been dropping for decades.
Public health officials say the increase in fatalities isn't that hard to understand. The surge in deaths is largely due to the new drugs of choice - prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with other drugs or alcohol.
Among the most commonly abused are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. One relative newcomer to the scene is Fentanyl, a painkiller that comes in the form of patches and lollipops and is 100 times more powerful than morphine.
What's interesting is that while crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980's and early 1990's in addition to heroin overdoses were major news stories and points of debate in public policy circles, the presciption drug epidemic gets precious little attention in the mainstream media.
That's odd considering that drugs like Oxycontin and Vicodin now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.
"The problem is right here under our noses in our medicine cabinets," Laz Salinas, a commander with the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Dept., told the Times' reporters. The Santa Barbara area has experienced a dramatic rise in prescription drug deaths in recent years.
In addition to being more deadly than cocaine and heroin, the new generation of prescription pain killers are harder to "kick," as well.
In many ways prescription drugs are more dangerous than illicit ones because users don't have their guard up, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt.
Steve Opferman, head of a county task force on prescription drug-related crimes.
"People feel they are safer with prescription drugs because you get them from a pharmacy and they are prescribed by a doctor," Opferman told the Times. "Younger people believe they are safer because they see their parents taking them. It doesn't have the same stigma as using street narcotics."
Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, years for which more detailed data are available. Deaths more than tripled among people aged 50 to 69, the Times research shows.
Overdose deaths involving prescription painkillers, including OxyContin and Vicodin, and anti-anxiety drugs such as Valium and Xanax more than tripled between 2000 and 2008.
The rise in deaths corresponds with doctors prescribing more painkillers and anti-anxiety medications and massive advertising and lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry.
The number of prescriptions for the strongest pain pills filled at California pharmacies, for instance, increased more than 43 percent since 2007. The doses also increased.
According to the Los Angeles Times article, availability is also fueling the prescription drug abuse epidemic.
"On a recent weekday morning, Los Angeles County undercover sheriff's deputies posing as drug buyers easily purchased enough pills to fill a medicine cabinet on a sidewalk a few blocks south of Los Angeles City Hall," the article says.
Perhaps the scariest part of all this for law enforcement and public health officials is that everyone knows the issue is a huge problem. But no one knows what to do in terms of fixing it.
"What's really scary is we don't know a lot about how to reduce prescription deaths," Amy S.B. Bohnert, a researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School who is studying ways to lower the risk of prescription drugs, told the Times. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
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THE HARSH REALITY OF ADDICTION
The producers of this short film are both recovering addicts who have both spent time living and indulging with drug addiction in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Today they are both clean and sober with multiple years of recovery
Addiction: Chaos in Vancouver
http://www.archive.org/details/VancouverAddictionHomelessChaosPoverty
http://www.bestvancouverguide.com/main-and-hastings-best-place-to-see-crackheads-and-junkies-in-vancouver/66/