Americans Are Increasingly Abusing Painkillers

Americans Are Increasingly Abusing Painkillers.
Rehab admissions akin to alcohol, opiates (including remedy painkillers) and marijuana increased in the United States between 1999 and 2009, according to a novel national report. However, fewer people sought treatment for problems with cocaine and methamphetamine or amphetamines, the researchers noted. One of the most staggering increases over the 10-year swat period: opiate admissions, mostly due to use of medicament opioids, which include painkillers such as oxycodone (Oxycontin) or Vicodin (hydrocodone).

The findings showed that 96 percent of the nearly 2 million admissions to curing facilities that occurred in 2009 were kindred to alcohol (42 percent), opiates (21 percent), marijuana (18 percent), cocaine (9 percent) and methamphetamine/amphetamines (6 percent). The promulgate from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) identified trends in the reasons why settle are admitted to gravamen abuse treatment facilities.

The SAMHSA report revealed that prescription drugs were to criticism for 33 percent of opiate rehab admissions in 2009 - up from just 8 percent a decade earlier. Alcohol tongue-lashing also remains a serious problem. It was the number one mind for substance abuse treatment among all major ethnic and racial groups, except Puerto Ricans, according to the report.

Although alcohol-related admissions dropped from 48 percent to 39 percent between 1999 and 2005, the several resurged to 42 percent of all admissions by 2009. Compounding the problem, 44 percent of those who mistreated booze admitted to using other drugs as well.

So "This new report shows the defiance our nation's health system must address as the treatment needs of people with drug and John Barleycorn problems continue to evolve," SAMHSA administrator, Pamela S Hyde, said in an activity news release. "People often arrive in treatment programs with multiple problems - including dependency or addiction to multiple substances of abuse".

Marijuana is another cardinal cause of admission to treatment facilities, jumping from 13 percent to 18 percent of admissions between 1999 and 2009. The bulk of these cases, 74 percent, complicated men, and nearly half of these patients were white. The drug was also a insight for 86 percent of admissions involving teens aged 12 to 17 years, according to the report.

As fault of alcohol, marijuana and opiates rose over the decade, rehab admissions for cocaine use flatten from 14 percent to 9 percent. Methamphetamine and amphetamine admissions rose from 4 percent to 9 percent between 1999 and 2005, but then settled at 6 percent by 2009 syrup. "As well-being concern reform continues to improve the delivery of health services in our country, this type of bumf will increasingly be used to inform the needs of an integrated system of care," Hyde stated in the SAMHSA talk release.