Prescription Drug Abuse

While there is no clear toxicology report from the Michael Jackson autopsy, it is clear that based on interviews with individuals who knew the singer, he had access to many prescription medications. We typically think of a "drug abuser" as someone who uses illict drugs. The reality in the US, is that abuse of prescription drugs is quite prevalent and we, as a society, seem to view that behavior differently. Many people seem to think that if you have a prescription, it seems to put the drug in another "league," meaning that if you choose to take more than recommended, it is somehow "acceptable...OK."

There is a prescription overdosing crisis in America today and it involves everything from people refusing to leave a doctor's office without an antibiotic if sick, to people seeing several physicians and getting multiple prescriptions for narcotics. The behavior seems especially prevalent among the rich and famous who seem to feel that the medication prescribing rules don't apply to them. In a way, they are correct, because no matter how many doctors they may have to go through, they will eventually find someone willing to prescribe drugs simply to be "part of the entourage." Or maybe the doctor says to himself, "if not me, then someone else, so why not me?" We call it a doctor enabler and the reality is, there are a fair number of them behind the scenes, often writing prescriptions for a famous person under multiple names. Usually opiods or pain medications are involved and the abuse potential is huge. Drug overdose is now the second leading casue of accidental death in the US.

We'll have to wait to hear if dangerous medications (prescriptions and "only for hospital use medications") were involved in MJ's death, or if a combination of several similar drugs caused respiratory depression and subsequent death. If it is a similar tragedy to Anna Nicole Smith and Heath Ledger, then the question that begs to be asked is - "How many more deaths?" Or because high profile, wealthy individuals are involved, is the reality that we cannot stop these terrible tragedies? Money, it seems, can indeed buy you anything....even premature death.