Addiction has been a problem in the United States since the time of our founding fathers. Over time, however, the face of addiction has changed. History teaches us that individuals who become addicted do so in the social and medical context of their time. Today, more and more Americans are turning to pain pills. The abuse of oral medications such as hydrocodone (Lortab® and Vicodin®) oxycodone (Percodan®, Percocet® and OxyContin®)  and related pain pills is on the rise. This trend is especially alarming in our adolescents and young adults.

Whether an addict gets pain pills from a drug dealer on the street, the Internet, from their parents medicine cabinet, or a physician with a "legal" prescription does not matter if that individual suffers from addiction.

Damon Meharg from WebMD recently interviewed Dr. Earley about the dangerous and increasingly alarming problem of addiction to prescription pain pills. You can watch the video below. When you have watched, the video, be sure you visit the WebMD site for more information about addiction to prescription medications. Click here for full article on the WebMD web portal.

The laws regarding the prescription of pain medicines have changed as well. In my home state and country (Georgia, USA), we have not been able to track physicians who over-prescribe and patients who scam physicians for drugs. We hope that this will change soon. Below is a story in the local media describing the problem and a proposed legislative response to decrease the quantity of illicit pain pills in our world.

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