A leading Canadian drug rehabilitation organization released a new study last month that focuses on an alarming trend that has seen a significant increase in the number of individuals seeking help after becoming addicted to prescribed medication.
Marcel Gemme, a leading Canadian substance abuse counselor and owner of Drug Rehab Services, said he's noticed a “terrifying change” in the types of cases his organization is dealing with in his report – ‘Are Prescription Drugs Replacing Street Drugs?'
“After being in the field of addiction for over 15 years, I have noticed a horrifying tendency taking place with regards to addiction to drugs, one that is definitely not reassuring,” Gemme states in the report. “Over the past ten years there has been a significant shift from the number of people coming to us for help to get off street drugs to people coming to us for help having become addicted to prescribed medication.”
In 2007, over 70 per cent of the cases Drug Rehab Services dealt with involved the usual ‘street drugs', with 10 per cent focusing on prescribed medication and 2 per cent on alcohol abuse. Fast forward five years and those numbers have changed significantly, with 33 per cent of the cases in 2012 dealing with street drugs, 31 per cent with prescribed medication and 36 per cent with alcohol abuse.
The report suggests that the misuse of common medication such as benzodiazepines (sleeping pills) and painkillers are mostly to blame for the rise, with Gemme pointing the finger at doctors, who he believes provide their patients with prescriptions for a longer period than they should.
“The difficult thing to consider about most people addicted to prescribed medication is that they are not the addictive type that have a predisposition to any addiction to drugs or alcohol,” Gemme said. “They were prescribed these medications for a physical problem and then got addicted to it and cannot quit on their own.”
He added, “I think that doctors should be trained on detecting patients susceptible to getting addicted to such medications. Furthermore, they should be more aware of the potential addictive effects of these medications. This last idea is probably a ‘dream' but government or pharmaceutical companies should not give any ‘commissions' to doctors when they prescribe certain medications. Such measures would make sure that doctors would keep an ethical conduct with regards to such prescriptions.”
In Bonnyville, the Indian-Métis Drug Rehabilitation Centre deals with a number of individuals trying to address addiction on a monthly basis. The organization's executive director Leah Ferris noted that a “significant amount” of the people coming in for treatment were doing so after becoming addicted to prescribed medication.
“We're treating people for addictions involving prescription medication here at the rehab centre all the time,” Ferris said. “It's a concern and a difficult concern at that because prescription meds are a very difficult drug to come off of, and so detox and rehabilitation is a lot longer and the effects are a lot longer lasting.”
She added that another part of the problem was the fact that because these types of addictions are involving prescribed medication, it means there is usually a wide variety of people having issues with them.
“The new trend that seems to be happening, (especially here in Bonnyville) is the kids using these types of meds,” Ferris said. “They're taking them from parents or other people, so they're sometimes more easily accessed and that's a problem. Then you have some of the senior community encountering problems. They all grew up thinking that doctors are all knowing and never questioned what meds they should be taking. Now because seniors are often hindered by certain ailments, they're typically receiving medication for pain and it turns out affecting their whole life, but they can't get off them because once the they're hooked the body wants to keep going. So that makes the detox very difficult.”
She added, “People have always typically believed that prescription drugs are safe, so there's definitely a false stigma involved that leads people to think (they're ok continuously taking prescribed medication).”
Ferris said that although the effects are very different, the centre takes exactly the same approach when treating individuals addicted to prescribed medication as they do with those addicted to street drugs, pointing out the main aim is to focus on the cleansing of the soul.
“We take the same kind of treatment with everybody here, no matter what the addiction is,” Ferris said. “We work on the healing of the spirit and try to understand exactly what is going on with each individual. For some people, like seniors who are getting meds and are addicted without wanting to be addicted, they go through the same urges and cravings as everyone else, so we have to sit them down and teach them the same things. It sometimes can be harder to treat and longer lasting, but we do our best to help.”
According to Ferris, the number of clients reporting prescription drug use is up, specifically in the areas of anti-depressants and barbiturates. Twenty-four per cent of the their clients are concerned about or are using anti-depressants, 13 per cent are concerned about or using barbiturates, while 7.7 per cent are using amphetamines (not including methamphetamine users) and 3.5 per cent are using Talwin and Ritalin (Ts and Rs).
She said, “The problem with Ts and Rs is that they start at a young age and they work well for kids diagnosed with ADHD, but they have the opposite affect on those without ADHD.”
Sylvain Fournier, a counselor at Drug Rehab Services, backed the study presented by Gemme, saying the organization was taking “an insane amount of calls” from individuals affected by prescribed medication on a daily basis.
“In a nutshell, what the study is saying is that people are no longer getting hooked on street drugs and more and more are becoming addicted to prescribed medication,” Fournier said. “We barely have people calling us for the typical street drugs anymore, it's all about ‘how can we get off (oxycontin) and (benzodiazepines). It's a real concern.”
Fournier was keen to point out that the organization consistently deals with two types of people – those who aren't aware they're addicted and had no intention of getting addicted, and those that are taking prescribed medication as a replacement for others. He also pointed out that addictions involving prescribed medication can be more dangerous and even tougher to treat than addictions involving street drugs, saying people need to start taking action and questioning their doctors if they're advised to take a certain medication for an extended period of time.
“It's absolutely crazy the damage these medications can do you. If you take them the right way for the right amount of time, then you're fine, but once you start to abuse them, or take them for longer than you should, even unknowingly, then we start to have problems,” Fournier said. “These medications will harm you a lot more and a lot faster than most street drugs, both physically and psychologically, so people need to be careful.”
He added, “What I say to people who call us is just go and talk to your doctor and tell them you want to be taken off those types of medication so that we can put up a specific protocol to help get you off them. There have been a lot of cases though where people have said to me that their doctors have told them to stop believing what they read on the internet and that there's nothing wrong with them and they need to keep taking their medication.”
According to Fournier, whenever Drug Rehab Services receives a phone call, they carry out an over the phone assessment to try and understand each situation on an individual basis. He said they immediately find out how long the individual has been taking the drug, prescribed or otherwise, and come up with a plan that not only informs the addicts and families on what addiction is, but also recommends a suitable course of action and treatment.
The organization usually takes in 600 calls per month, with Gemme saying 15 per cent of those calls emanate from Alberta.
Fournier said there were a number of things that could be done to try and address the issue, but admitted it would be a long and difficult journey.
“I think the way to go would probably be putting together and conducting some very independent studies regarding the consequences of prescribing the same medication to people over and over again,” Fournier said. “Perhaps once we do something like that, people will realize this is an issue and we can all sit down together and see what can be done to stop this kind of thing, because it's getting out of hand.”
He added, “At the end of the day, what we try to do is help people as best we can. We're faced with a fact that there are more and more people getting hooked on prescribed medication. We want to help, but we're stuck with the problem that we have a hard time finding proper treatment for Canadians. This is a problem that either doesn't get solved, or gets solved very slowly, because there aren't too many treatments out there that will help people get off prescribed medication.”
