Reduce Access to Prescription Drugs

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Stats on Access to Opioids for Non-Medical Use (Misuse)

Pain medications are often given or sold by friends or relatives to people who misuse them.  

This article on the results of SAMHSA's 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (a survey of nearly 70,000 people) shows some important statistics on Opioid Misuse. 

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According to the survey (which always is influenced by the sample surveyed and their honesty in answering the survey) indicates that of people who misused pain relievers, the majority (53.1%) received them from a friend or relative.  

• 38.5% received them from a friend or relative for free.
• 10.6% purchased them from a friend or relative
• 4.0% took them from a friend or strange

It would be helpful to have (or find) better research on this, but given that this poll showed that 62.6% of the people who misused prescription pain relievers did so for pain, it would seem plausible that most of these people who admitted ot misusing prescription pain relievers in the survey may have been in the relatively early stages of developing dependence, and the person giving them their own prescription pain relievers were trying to help them deal with the pain, not trying to help them get high or feed an addiction to aviod withdrawal symptoms. 

This data would suggest to important strategy issues:

1. It is not enough to lock up pain medications to avoid diversion.  If people are givng them to friends or relatives or if they are selling them, that person would not be stopped by a typical locked box.  They already know how to open that. 
2. A strategy to reduce prescription drug misuse should include a strong emphasis on educating people to not give or sell their medications to anyone else.  This might include educating people on how they can best respond when a friend or relative approaches them to get prescription pain medication to help them address their pain problem. 
3. A strategy should emphasize prompt disposal of pain medications after their prescribed use is no longer needed. If people quickly dispose of their presecription pain medications when they are not necessary, they would be less likely in a situation where a friend or relative who was struggling with pain (or perhaps pretending to struggle with pain or who was struggling with paid related to withdrawal) would be able to pursuade the person to give them or sell them the drugs. 

It is Getting Harder for Teens to Access Prescription Opioids

The 2017 Monitoring the Future survey of 8th, 10th and 12th graders shows encouraging news.  it's getting harder for teens to access prescription opioids.  Only 35.8 percent of 12th graders said they were easily available in the 2017 survey, compared to more than 54 percent in 2010   Overall, 43,703 students from 360 public and private schools participated in this year's MTF survey. 

How Easy Access Leads to Misuse and Addiction

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Examples of Easy Access to Opioids

Skittles Parties:  A Skittles Party could take the form of a home filled with teenagers where everyone brings all the prescription medications they have on hand and pool them. Then anyone at the party who wants to abuse a pill just dips in and grabs whatever they want.
 

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It would be great to have or find research that clarifies details on why people give opioids to friends and relatives.  If this is the single largest source of how people the presecription pain medication for misuse, having greater insights into this would allow for better strategies and tools. 

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Sources

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1. http://www.narconon.org/blog/narconon/skittles-party-by-teens-is-not-what-it-seems/