A new bill is being proposed in Broward County, Florida to allow doctors and police to access a database that would enable them to monitor an individual’s use of prescription drugs. With 1,324 people killed by prescription drugs in Florida in the first six months of 2007 - compare this to the 470 who died from cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines - this bill can’t be enacted too soon. I don’t know how many people need prescription drug detox in Florida, but you can bet that if 1,324 people died from using them, there are hundreds of thousands who could be headed in the same direction.



The database is already available to doctors, pharmacists and police in other states, but this would be the first Florida County to adopt its use. It would be used to monitor ‘doctor shopping’ - going from one doctor to another, faking symptoms or doing whatever you have to do to get a prescription. Obviously, anyone who’s going this far to get drugs is at least physically dependent, if not addicted. Either way, they should probably be in drug detox or drug rehab, not looking for more drugs.



While there are definitely unethical doctors around who will prescribe drugs to just about anyone who walks in the door - not to mention those who’ve made fuelling addictions into their second, and probably more profitable, career - the vast majority of doctors are well-intentioned and would be horrified at the idea of having caused or fuelled an addiction, especially one that ended in death. If doctors can access this database, they can help get patients who come to them for drugs into a drug detox center instead.



Are all the people taking these prescription drugs just trying to get high? “Many people who come to our facility certainly didn’t intend to become dependent on or addicted to prescription drugs," says Steve Hayes, director of Novus Medical Detox Center in Pasco County, Florida. “They are given the pills by their doctors to alleviate pain or help with some other acute situation and then, when they try to get off the drugs, they experience such incredibly painful or uncomfortable symptoms that they opt to keep taking the drugs. Eventually, they realize they have a problem and call us for help."



Unfortunately, many people taking prescription drugs - and this applies to both painkillers like OxyContin and tranquilizers like Xanax or Valium - don’t realize that the pain and distress they experience when they try to stop taking the drugs is withdrawal. Instead, they see it as a return of the symptoms they initially got the drug to alleviate, and as an indication that they still need the drug.



The prescription drugs that are killing Floridians are the most commonly prescribed painkillers and benzodiazepines. Here is the breakdown of deaths in the first six months of 2007: methadone, 392; benzodiazepines, e.g. Valium and Xanax, 353; oxycodone, i.e. OxyContin, 323; hydrocodone, e.g. Vicodin and Lortab, 134; and morphine, 122.



Access to the prescription drug database will help doctors, pharmacists and police to identify people who are requesting excessive amounts of these drugs, but you can’t depend on them to help you, you need to help yourself. And your friends and family. If you or someone you care about has a prescription drug problem, contact a medical drug detox program facility to get help.