PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE RISES, AND SOLUTIONS FOLLOW

SUMMIT COUNTY - Colorado used to be as good as any place to easily
"doctor shop" to illegally obtain prescription drugs, but that's changing.

Currently, a Pharmalert Hotline allows professionals to report fraud
and spread the warning throughout the state.

But on June 3, Gov. Bill Owens signed a bill ensuring that Colorado
will have a prescription drug monitoring program.

Every time doctors prescribe medication, the information will go into
a database, regulated by the Colorado State Board of Pharmacy. Doctors
can access the database whenever they suspect prescription drug abuse.
However, the system won't go into effect until October, 2006 at the
earliest, said Jody Gingery, director of Colorado Prescription Drug
Abuse Task Force.

In the meantime, the task force continues to educate doctors, law
enforcement officials, pharmacists and other health care providers
about prescription drug abuse and scams. On June 7, it met with about
a dozen professionals at the Summit County Community and Senior Center.

Diagnosing the problem

The number of prescription drug abusers tripled from 1990 to 2003; the
number of people using prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes is
about 2.8 million, according to Denver drug enforcement officer Rick
Quintero.

People obtain the drugs through doctor shopping, street sales, theft,
fraudulent prescriptions and the internet.

A search on the internet for prescription drugs lists sites that send
drugs to people after phone consultations or online questionnaires;
some have restrictive policies, others do not. The sites move around
daily so officials have trouble shutting them down.

In Colorado, one third of the drugs sold on the streets are
prescription, and Vicodin leads the pack, Gingery said. When OxyContin
came out in the late 1990s, abuse of prescription painkillers
increased, said Dr. Julie Colliton, of Summit-Eagle Spine &
Rehabilitation.

The drug, also called "hillbilly heroin," was marketed as one people
couldn't abuse, but now people crush and snort it to override its
time-release properties. Overdoses of OxyContin caused two million
people to go to the emergency room in 2002, Colliton said.
Emergency-room visits for opiate prescription drugs more than doubled
in Colorado between 1994 and 2000.

Now drug enforcement agents think a new drug, Palladome, will make
OxyContin look like a minor league player. The drug, developed for
opiate tolerate patients, is four times stronger than OxyContin. So
far, agents haven't seen problems with it in Colorado.

But local pharmacists see people trying to abuse other prescription
drugs. About five times a year, City Market pharmacist Cathe Sander
turns in abusers.

"You kind of get a feel from someone," she said.

About 20 percent of the drug task force's cases in Summit County are
prescription drugs, said Derek Woodman, undersheriff.

"Lately they've just been getting inundated with (cases)," Woodman
said.

Examing the problem

. Prescription drug abuse causes more injuries and deaths than all
illegal drugs combined.

. The main classes of prescription drugs people abuse are: opiods
(prescribed to treat pain), depressants (used to treat anxiety and
sleep disorders) and stimulants (used to treat the sleep disorder
narcolepsy, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity).

. In 1982, Colorado was one of the top 15 states in per capita
consumption of nine abused prescription drugs. In 1986, four years
after the Colorado Prescrition Drug Abuse Task Force formed to help
reduce abuse, Colorado stayed in the top 15 for only three
prescription drugs. As of 1996, Colroado ranked amonth the top 15 in
only one drug - cocaine.

. Five main reasons people choose prescrition drugs as opposed to
illegal street drugs are: 1) fear of AIDS, 2) urine tests from
employers, 3) purity and predictability of prscriptions, 4) illegal
possession of prescription drugs is only a misdemeanor in many states
(though in Colorado it's a felony), as opposed to trafficking street
drugs and 5) prescriptions are reimbursable through insurance.

. Street vailes for some narcotics in the Denver area range from $1 to
$80 a tablet. Cancer patients may receive Dilaudid of up to 600
tablets per prescription. At a street va;ie pf $60 per tablet, 600
tablets would be worth $36,000.

. One-third of the drugs ont he street are prescriptions.

. Less than 1 percent of doctors who prescribe durgs nationwide are
dishonest in prescribing.

. Between 1990 and 2001, the number of firt-time users of opoid
analgesics for nonmedical purposes grew by 333 percent, to include 2.5
million people. Women accounted for 55 percent of use in 2002, and 44
percent of new use in 2001 was by people younger than 18.

. Adderall is one of the most abused prescription drugs in the
country; many students use it to gain an edge in college.