California Drug Overdose Deaths on the Rise

The number of deaths from drug overdoses in the state of California, most of which were due to prescription medications, increased by 31% from 1999 to 2010, according to recently released information.  These statistics are quite frightening, but how they compare with other states may surprise you.

California surprisingly fared better than many states in relation to overdose deaths and it came in with the 15^th lowest drug-overdose mortality rate in America.  Approximately 10.6 per 100,000 people suffered fatal overdoses in 2010, according to the “Prescription Drug Abuse: Strategies to Stop the Epidemic,” which was released by the nonprofit group Trust for America’s Health. While most states received a score of 6 or less, California scored an 8 on a scale of 10, for “promising indicators,” on strategies to curb prescription drug abuse.

According to Billie Weiss, the associate director of the Southern California Injury and Violence Research Prevention Program at UCLA, “We’ve been working at it, but we can do better.  We can be using our pharmacy prescribing database to really keep better track of physicians who are overprescribing…We have drug shoppers who go to a bunch of physicians and get prescriptions; using that prescribing database would really help identify some of those folks.”

While California has an active prescription drug monitoring database called C.U.R.E.S, for certain types of controlled substances, it does not make it mandatory for physicians to report every patient’s information.  As of 2014, approximately 33 other states, including; Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, South Dakota, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington, New Hampshire, Delaware, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, Vermont, Maine, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Iowa, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and others have implemented prescription drug monitoring programs.

California has been given points for many indicators, including having a “doctor shopping law” and a “good Samaritan law.”  The “doctor shopping law” prohibits people from withholding information about prior prescriptions from their health care professionals, while the “good Samaritan law” provides someone with immunity or lessening of a sentence for those who seek help from themselves or someone else experiencing a drug overdose.

Nationally, overdose deaths involving prescription medications, specifically painkillers, have quadrupled since 1999, and now outnumber those deaths from cocaine and heroin combined.

Prescription drug abuse and misuse have reached epidemic proportions and it warrants a strong public health response.  California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed two new bills into law aimed at curbing prescription drug abuse.  The first one is SB 670 and it gives the state medical board the authority to inspect and copy medical records of a deceased patient without a court order or the consent of the next of kin.  The second bill SB 809, increases practitioners licensing fees in order to fund an overhaul of the C.U.R.E.S system database, which some doctors now consider too difficult to use.

We at the California Addiction Network applaud the recent laws passed to aid in protecting people from death by drug overdose. However, we are also realistic in that we know there are countless numbers of people who are in need of help and we invite them to call us today, because the longer you play around with drugs the worse your life will become.