Posted under Marijuana

Marijuana Prescription Drug Hopes for FDA Approval by 2013

A British company known as GW Pharma hopes to get approval for the first ever prescription drug derived from the cannabis plant to help treat cancer patients. The company hopes to have FDA approval by 2013 so they can release the medicine in the form of a mouth spray. They are now in advanced trial periods testing the drug which will be developed from raw marijuana rather than synthetic equivalents. Continue Reading

Posted under Teens

The Power of an Informed Parent

"Oh, mom, not another talk about drugs!”

If that’s the response you get from your teenagers when you try to enlighten them about the dangers of drug abuse, congratulations, you’re on the right track! Continue Reading

Posted under Celebrity Addiction

Former NFL Football Star Ryan Leaf Shares Painkiller Addiction Story

Ten years ago, Ryan Leaf was considered one of the top NFL draft picks, compared to stars like Peyton Manning. Soon after, the football hopeful entered into a period of drug abuse, angry outbursts and criminal behavior. Today, Leaf visits schools and shares a new story with teens about learning from his mistakes and avoiding drugs. Continue Reading

Posted under Addiction News

Epilepsy Drug Misuse in the UK

The use of the Internet to sell controlled substances has made it easy for drug addicts to obtain certain drugs and abuse them. With Internet commerce morphing easily, it is difficult for regulators to keep up with the sales of substances conducted via the Internet. In addition, the substances available to individual drug users can be broad and change constantly with Internet sales, so the combination of drugs being used by an individual can change often. Continue Reading

Posted under Public Policy

Federal Budget Allocates Nearly $26 Billion for Drug Abuse Spending

While cocaine abuse has decreased by almost 50 percent in the last five years among young adults ranging from ages 18 to 25, drug abuse among prescription abusers has not, according to a recent Bloomberg report. Continue Reading

Posted under Addiction & Society

Obama Administration Takes Action To End Prescription Drug Epidemic

In the 1970s, it was black tar heroin. In the 1980s, it was crack cocaine. Today it is prescription drug abuse. In fact, the number of Americans who accidentally died from this category of drugs now exceeds the number who died from cocaine and heroin in those other two decades. Continue Reading

Posted under Prescription Drug Addiction

Prescribing Lower Potency Opioids May Help Reduce Dependency

A new study suggests that patients being prescribed higher potencies of opioid medications may be at greater risk of overdose and related death than those being prescribed lower potencies. Patients who have back pain, headache, or a prior history of substance abuse and have been prescribed long-term opioid therapy are more likely to end up in the emergency department or need other types of medical care for opioid withdrawal, overdose, intoxication, or other alcohol- and drug-related problems.

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Posted under Addiction News

Southern California Doctor Suspected of Prescription Drug Dealing

Dr. Lisa Tseng, an osteopathic doctor who practices in Rowland Heights, California, is under fire from state and federal drug administration authorities over the way she prescribes dangerous and addictive narcotics to patients. Officials claim that as many as six prescription drug overdose deaths can be directly linked to drugs that Tseng prescribed.  While expressing regret at the loss of life, Tseng believes that patients themselves are to blame for not taking the drugs as prescribed.

The case brings up challenging questions about the proper method of conducting a patient exam to identify addictive or drug-seeking behavior, how and when to prescribe drugs for new and existing patients, and whether a doctor has a duty to ensure that a patient complies with dosage instructions. Unlike when apprehending a drug dealer on the streets, where evidence of criminal activity is relatively obvious, law enforcement officials encounter obstacles when trying to build a criminal case against a doctor for negligence or intentional wronging in writing prescriptions. Given that much of the information doctors rely on to determine the proper course of treatment is actually communicated directly by the patient, holding doctors liable for abuse and misuse of prescription drugs continues to be a gray area of the law.

Dr. Tseng, age forty, is a graduate of Michigan State University. She received an osteopathic degree from its College of Human Medicine in 1996. Despite claims that she is responsible for the deaths of several of her patients, Dr. Tseng’s license to practice medicine in the State of California remains active; she has had no malpractice judgments against her and has not yet been charged with any crimes.  However, officials now must determine whether Tseng is a medical professional or a prescription drug dealer, not such an easy task.

Unbeknownst to Dr. Tseng, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) embarked on a three-year investigation of her prescription-writing practices after receiving several complaints from pharmacists and loved ones of her patients. At the conclusion of the investigation, investigators determined that Dr. Tseng poses an imminent danger to public health and safety and they are in the process of initiating criminal proceedings against her. As a result, the DEA terminated her ability to prescribe addictive drugs, such as OxyContin, indefinitely.  After going public with Dr. Tseng’s case, law enforcement officials have received additional complaints from parents who claim that their kids overdosed on drugs prescribed by Dr. Tseng.

Tseng has been forthcoming about the way she practices medicine and claims that she receives complaints from parents of her patients daily. Tseng claims that these parents call her names, such as “drug doctor”. However, Tseng strongly defends herself and her prescription-writing practices, claiming that she prescribes meds based on what patients tell her their symptoms are and what she is able to discern from a physical exam. New patients pose particular difficulties, Tseng claims, as she has no way of knowing whether or not they are telling the truth.  Instead of acknowledging her role in the deaths of several young people under her care, Tseng blames the patients for not precisely following her dosing instructions.

Government officials, however, claim that Tseng is prescribing dangerous narcotics, such as OxyContin, without evidence that a patient has a bona fide need for the drug. Under the law, a physician can prescribe addictive painkillers, anti-anxiety drugs, and sleep aids after she has diagnosed the patient and determined that the drug will help alleviate the symptoms or the medical problem. The law does require, however, that the doctor conduct a physical evaluation and keep detailed medical records.

If carried out correctly, medical authorities claim that a physical and history-taking should help doctors identify addicts who are doctor shopping in order to obtain a new supply of drugs. Among the things that should warn the doctor that a patient is drug seeking are patients who are willing to travel a long way for a medical appointment; those who already know what they need and take it upon themselves to ask for a specific medication; and patients who claim that they “lost” their current bottle of pills. Another indictor of addiction, although not necessarily something a doctor would be aware of, is when a patient fills narcotic prescriptions at different pharmacies (in order to avoid detection).

Tseng readily admits that several of her patients drove long distances for an appointment with her but says that when she questioned them, they indicated that they had been referred by her other patients. Tseng believed that a personal referral was a plausible reason for someone to drive incredibly long distances to be seen for a bad back.

Although she suspected that some of the patients she was treating were using her to obtain prescription drugs that were not clinically indicated, the first real alarm started to sound when she became aware that pharmacies where questioning her prescriptions or even declining to fill her prescriptions. Combined with the public outcry surrounding the recent overdoses of high-profile celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Corey Haim in 2009, this negative feedback from pharmacies prompted Tseng to cease prescribing OxyContin. For her part, Tseng feels that her refusal to write prescriptions for OxyContin successfully deterred drug seekers from continuing to come to see her.

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Posted under Prescription Drug Addiction

Massachusetts Acquires New Tracking System to Combat Prescription Drug Abuse

Last week, health officials from Massachusetts’ Public Health Council unanimously approved the implementation of a new state detection system that will help physicians prevent prescription drug addicts from doctor shopping.

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Posted under Celebrity Addiction

Corey Haim: A Victim of Doctor Shopping

California’s top law official reported Tuesday that former child actor Corey Haim had prescriptions for as many as 553 dangerous drugs in the last year of his life, which was the result of "doctor shopping," or visiting numerous doctors to fraudulently obtain prescription drugs. This issue has been raised in numerous celebrity deaths, including Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson, and Health Ledger. Madison Park of CNN writs that doctors say they often rely on their own instant judgments in the office and have little reliable means of double-checking the patients’ information.

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