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Brittany Murphy, Michael Jackson, Heath Legder... America's fatal addiction to prescription drugs
The biggest killer drugs in the States right now are legal and have been prescribed. Here's how easy it is to score and to get hooked.
I went to my appointment with “Dr C’ in Los Angeles with a shopping list of the most commonly abused types of drug: pain relievers, tranquillisers, stimulants and sedatives. Beforehand, a local addiction specialist, Bernadine Fried, had briefed me on how to approach your doctor like an addict and still come away with fistfuls of pills.
The script went like this: “Say, ‘I just went to my first NA meeting, I’m struggling with my addiction. I’m super anxious, but I also have these pain issues from an old injury.’” Fried stops to think. “Right, what do we have there? He should have given you an opiate [painkiller], Xanax [benzodiazepine tranquilliser, a new-generation Valium] and maybe an antidepressant. Now we just need a stimulant, such as Adderall, and a sleeping pill. Say, ‘I’m having a hard time focusing and my work is so important to me and it’s all that’s keeping me going at this difficult time.’ Oh, and then say, ‘I can’t sleep.’”
America is in the grip of what emergency doctors describe as an epidemic. The National Institute of Drug Abuse has watched the use of all illicit drugs and cigarettes drop steadily over the past five years, while prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse has risen. Oxycontin, the brand name of the strongest opiate on the market, has been called hillbilly heroin because of its abuse among the working classes, but Courtney Love, Winona Ryder and, ironically, the right-wing, antidrug shock jock Rush Limbaugh have had well-publicised problems with the drug. Then there is Adderall, and the new-generation “benzos”, such as Klonopin and Xanax. Adderall’s name crops up around fashionable thinness; when the size-zero debate first flared, it was rumoured to be a significant agent to that alarming skin’n’bone’n’suntan Hollywood look. “Adderall is really a treatment for ADHD, but it’s handed out like candy,” Fried says. “Its abuse usually indicates eating disorders.”
Karim never believes what patients say. “You can see their disappointment when I say, ‘And by the way, I am not giving you Adderall.’ These drugs are used by a fast-paced, instant-gratification society that doesn’t want to do things the long way, the right way. We’ve had the age of the speakeasy, cocaine, ecstasy — we like to be altered. Right now, pills are the flavour of the month. It’s not right, but this time it’s not illegal.”
Brittany Murphy, Michael Jackson, Heath Legder... America's fatal addiction to prescription drugs - Times Online