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Prescription drugs a top Utah killer

It seems that alot of people tend to see the illegal are a no no, and look so down upon the users. But rarely do I see people look down upon the users of prescription drugs and I agree that many haven't realized the harmful effects of prescriptions.

If we would only make this illegal, it wouldn't happen...oh, wait.

Why doesn't Utah attack their problems, instead of ignoring them. For years they have had a huge problem with prescription drugs use and a lot of the time it was the women who were doing this. Why?
Lay off the Oxycotton.

Let the war on drugs begin!

And let it begin in Provo!

I am all in favor of people knowing and USING their medications correctly. However, you ever tried to tell someone hooked on drugs that he can not get his prescription filled for another week because it is to soon? Have you ever been yelled at by such a druggie because you called Dr. A and informed him that the patient had just filled a prescription from Dr. B for the same drugs. What we need is a faster and better DOPL to let Docs. know what drugs their patients are taking and how many other Drs. the patient is seeing. I get tried of being in the middle of the druggies habit. I have 30 years experience as a retail working Pharmacist in Utah and have seen it all. People want to be hooked. They want a pill for everything. People need to learn to live life without so much drugs. Better life and less money spent. Good tradeoff if you can people to do it.

I am a physician providing urgent care. Nearly every day, patients come in with the same story: my regular doctor is unavailable, I am out of meds, I have a bad (back, neck, whatever) and here are the MRIs to prove it. I just need a month worth, or even a week worth, to hold me until they get back.

Every new patient that comes into my clinic seeking narcotics gets a DOPL report, to find out what they get, who prescribes it, and where they fill it.

Many of these patients are informed by my staff, without ever seeing me, that they will NOT get narcotics from my clinic under any circumstance and they will be reported to the Narcotic Task Force for doctor shopping.

The DOPL reports are available to any provider who takes the time to use them. An extra five minutes is worth it because I am helping addicts of Oxycontin, Lortab, Actiq, Percocet, etc. by reporting them and making them get treatment.

Some of them have returned later to thank me for forcing them to face their addictions and get help. I can't change the world, but I can improve my corner of it.

I want to thank the physician for taking charge of "his corner". We should all be willing to say, "How can I help in my area to make a difference?" Rather than say it's someone else's problem, and someone else can fix it. It's everyone's problem, and we all need to work together to see change.