Prescription meds kill more than illegal drugs

CHARLOTTESVILLE — Prescription drug abuse is on the rise and so are the deaths attributed to it, according to a state medical examiner epidemiologist who compiled data for the most recent annual report, which was released last week.

According to the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s 2007 annual report, the 388 prescription drug-related deaths accounted for more than double the illegal drug-related deaths (152) and half of all drug-related deaths (717).

The annual report details about 10 percent of all Virginia deaths.

The medical examiner’s office does not handle thousands of deaths considered natural. (An estimated 58,000 to 60,000 people died in Virginia in 2007.) The office handled 5,968 deaths that year.

The prescription drug-related death numbers are telling.

Nearly as many people in the state died from prescription drug overdoses in 2007 as were killed at the hands of others — there were 443 homicides. Accidents accounted for 2,404 deaths and suicides 906.

Those totals remained mostly steady while prescription drug deaths continued to climb.

There were 344 prescription drug deaths in 2006, 44 fewer than 2007, according to the report.

“It’s a huge problem in the western part of the state,” said Anna Noller, an OCME forensic epidemiologist who compiled the data in the report. “It’s slowly spreading across the state.”

In 2007, the state’s Western District had the highest number of drug-related deaths with 205, followed by Central (177), Northern (169) and Tidewater (167).

Overall in 2007, drug deaths were most common in Dickenson County, which had a rate of 61.9 per 100,000 residents. Albemarle, with a 2.1 rate, was the lowest in the state.

The medical examiner’s office deems about 70 percent of the drug deaths as accidental. Noller said the office doesn’t determine whether the prescription drugs are being used legitimately or illegally.

The most common deadly prescription drugs are methadone, oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl, Noller said.

Between 2004 and 2006, the four drugs by themselves and in combinations killed 855 people, according to another report by Noller.

Methadone is the most deadly of the four. It is used for pain management and to help treat opioid — heroin and morphine — addicts. By itself, methadone led to 481 deaths in the state between 2004 and 2007.

The four drugs accounted for 47.1 percent of all Virginia drug deaths in 2007, Noller said.

“So I think that’s pretty significant,” she said. “We need to be paying attention to it.”

In response to the growing problem of prescription drug abuse, Virginia in 2003 created a program to deal with it.

The Prescription Monitoring Program is a repository for data on such medications. It helps pharmacists, doctors and the like monitor prescriptions in the state, allowing them to keep tabs on patients, said Ralph Orr, program manager. He added that the program helps doctors better prescribe medications to their patients.

But the program also helps officials keep people from “doctor shopping,” which became a popular avenue for addicts to obtain large amounts of pain medication in the early 2000s. Law enforcement can also use the database.

“We do feel it’s had an impact,” Orr said. “At the same time we feel there’s room for growth.”

He and Noller said the prescription drug problem is not just in Virginia.

According to the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a growing number of first-time drug users started off with prescription medications rather than marijuana, which has long stood as the initiation drug.

“It’s a nationwide problem,” Orr said of prescription drug abuse. “People have this idea that prescription drugs are safe,” he said. “They don’t think it has the same issues as cocaine, marijuana” and other illegal drugs.

Scott Shenk is a staff writer for the Daily Progress in Charlottesville.