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Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 10:15 am | by cadfy
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Published October 18, 2011
Portland and Jackson County are rarely lumped together when it comes to statistics.
But when it comes to prescription drug abuse, the state's largest metropolitan area and Southern Oregon's commercial hub are in lock-step.
Dwight Holton, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Justice Department in Oregon, discussed the disconcerting commonality during Monday's Chamber Forum at the Rogue Valley Country Club. Holton was the interim U.S. attorney for Oregon until Sept. 26, when Amanda Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate
"Prescription drug abuse is spiraling out of control," Holton said, noting that more than 1,200 Oregonians have died in the past three years. That's five times as many as have been murdered.
"It's not like heroin trafficking, for the most part," Holton said. "It's in the medicine cabinet. By the time the problem gets to me, the tragedy has already happened. It's incredibly depressing. The good news is it's preventable."
Prevention is easier than dealing with addicts or convicts, he said.
There is no argument against proper use of medicine for healing and pain management, he said. But recreational use of prescription drugs is rapidly increasing among teens, with 74 percent of the abused drugs coming from medicine cabinets.
"Nowhere is it spreading faster than those under 20," Holton said, noting young abusers often mistakenly believe that medical drugs can't hurt them.
"Because we believe in science, it must be safe," he said. "For young people thinking it's a safe way to get high, the thinking is fatally flawed."
He described "pharm parties" where attendees brought prescription drugs, put them in a bowl and randomly selected a mixture for their use.
"When they are mixed, they can be killers."
The issue isn't limited to any demographic by age, income, gender or geography.
Prescription drug addiction easily leads to illicit drug use, he said.
"Heroin is easy to get, prescriptions are not," Holton said.
As sources dry up and the meds disappear from friends and relatives' cabinets, he said, "they get hungrier and hungrier and reach out to heroin."
Holton cited a Multnomah County needle exchange survey of 350 heroin users that revealed 41 percent of them started with prescription drugs.
"It's hard to fathom," he said.
Undercutting the supply by locking up medicine, properly disposing of it and educating the public, he said, are keys to stemming the epidemic. Federal regulations are being reworked to allow pharmacies and emergency rooms to accept and dispose of prescriptions and may be law by next spring.
"This community is devoted to tackling tough policy problems," Holton said. "You have a tremendous capacity to reach out to people on the edge and not let them fall off."
Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or email business@mailtribune.com.
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