Misuse of medications has become a deadly epidemic in Utah that in 2006 killed more people than car crashes. The 476 drug-related deaths were attributed to prescription, over-the-counter and illicit drugs, but nearly two-thirds of the deaths involved legal drugs.

On Tuesday, health and other officials unveiled a plan to educate patients and physicians, beef up investigation and curb the number of deaths, bolstered by funding from the Legislature's 2007 "Pain Medication Management and Education Bill."

Utah Department of Health executive director Dr. David Sundwall said he believes the resulting effort will "enable us to save hundreds and hundreds of lives in Utah. That's not an overstatement."

The most common legal drugs involved in the deaths were narcotic pain relievers, including methadone, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl. Those who died averaged 42 years of age and were divided about evenly between male and female in urban and rural communities statewide. State Medical Examiner Dr. Todd Grey said most of the deaths involved more than one drug.

And 2007 "is on track for being worse," Grey said. Almost one-fourth of his office's workload involves drug deaths.

Brandon Mecham and Mackenzie Lamb know all about the danger of becoming addicted to prescription drugs — and the subsequent battle to reclaim their lives. Lamb, now 21, became addicted to prescription pain medicine and later to heroin. He overdosed four times but was one of the lucky ones. Two of his friends died from pain medication overdoses.

Now clean, "I know every day I've got to do hours and hours of work to stay sober. It's not comfortable work," he said.

"I didn't grow up thinking I want to be drug-addicted," said Mecham, who was injured at work and ended up addicted first to hydrocodone and then to oxycodone. Sober since June 2004, he said he's still dealing with broken relationships and now has a criminal record. The chronic pain he still suffers is nothing compared to the pain his addictions brought him, he said.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bradley Daw, R-Orem, appropriated $150,000, which was matched by funding from the Utah Labor Commission. Health officials also hope to secure other funds for the effort, said state epidemiologist Dr. Robert Rolfs.

The bill-prompted plan has several components:

• The state's Controlled-Substance Database records will be linked to those of the medical examiner and death certificates to boost investigations into causes and risk factors. That database is also available to physicians and pharmacies, but is underused to see whether a patient might be doctor-shopping (getting prescriptions from multiple doctors). Dr. Alan Colledge of the Utah Labor Commission said it can also help spot doctors who are "outlyers" writing too many narcotic prescriptions.