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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Report: Half Of Patients Prescribed Opioid For 30 Days Still Using Drug Three Years Later.

In continuing coverage, ABC World News (12/9, story 7, 1:10, Muir) Chief Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser reported on a study from Express Scripts that looked at 36 million prescriptions and found that “nearly half of those patients who are described a narcotic and took it for more than 30 days, they were still on it three years later.” Dr. Besser said these drugs “are meant for short-term use,” and according to the CDC “46 people die from narcotic overdose, when they are combined with anxiety medication or sleeping pills” every day.

TIME (12/10, Sifferlin) reports that although “the rate of Americans using pain medications like codeine, morphine, oxycodone and hydrocodone long term has remained stable in the last five years,” the amount “of medication they take has increased.” The report found that “use was most rampant in small Southeastern cities, and two-thirds of patients were prescribed the drugs by two or more physicians.” Nearly “40% filled their prescriptions at multiple pharmacies.”

CBS News (12/10) reports on its website that according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “the U.S. accounts for only 5 percent of the world’s population, yet as a country we consume at least 75 percent of all opioid prescription drugs.”

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