Each and every one of us has the potential to be a drug dealer. Many of us may already be one, or may have been one in the past. How can that possibly be, you ask? Well, you may very well be a fine, upstanding citizen with a nine-to-five five job who drives a Volvo, but if you’re not locking your medicine cabinet you are also a drug dealer in the making. Studies show that over eighty percent of abused prescriptions come from the medicine cabinets of loved ones who fail to properly safeguard or dispose of used medication that was validly prescribed to them. Some addicts, like Michael Loverde, even get pills from the medicine cabinets of perfect strangers.

Loverde, a recovering drug addict, recently went on the record and revealed just how easy it is for prescription drug addicts to find their next fix. Although we certainly hear much more about it recent days than in years past (thanks in large part to Corey Haim and Michael Jackson), prescription drug addiction, drug seeking, doctor shopping, and drug-related theft are not new phenomena.

The lifecycle of a prescription drug addiction runs a fairly typical course. In Loverde’s case, it began innocently enough in the late 1990s when a friend who was being treated for cancer offered him a Vicodin after Loverde complained about his shoulder pain. While he experienced positive results from that first pill, it did not turn Loverde into a pill seeker overnight; he also rarely drank and didn’t smoke pot. It wasn’t until he helped himself to a handful after finding a large bottle of the painkiller in a car that he was servicing that the real trouble started. It didn’t take long until tracking down Vicodin became his primary task each day. Although his addiction stopped temporarily during college, it returned full force after graduation.

Because prescription drugs are not as readily available as other types of illicit drugs, addicts must get creative in order to avoid withdrawal. In Loverde’s case, he would fake back pain at a doctor’s office or in the emergency room in order to get a prescription for OxyContin or Vicodin. In order to also qualify for a shot of Demerol, Loverde would lie when asked if he had driven himself to the appointment.

Having run through many of the area doctors, clinics, and emergency rooms, Loverde had to get creative in order to maintain his consumption of prescription drugs. Although drug seeking from doctors is, by no means, acceptable behavior, it was mild compared to Loverde’s next scheme. In essence, Loverde developed a routine in which he scoped out homes for sale in the suburbs around where he lived and stole pills from their medicine cabinets when he was being toured around by a real estate agent. During these showings, Loverde would excuse himself to use the bathroom and would have unfettered access to the homeowners’ smorgasbord of prescription medication. Loverde would also attend garage sales, where unwary homeowners would invite him in to use the loo. During his stint as the “medicine cabinet bandit”, Loverde failed to find a house that didn’t provide some type of medication to feed his prescription drug addiction.

Loverde still remembers the open house he was attending when he realized that he had hit rock bottom. As usual, he had snagged a showing appointment for this particular house by pretending to be a very interested potential buyer. Once inside, however, he stole a large amount of Vicodin from the bedroom, despite the fact that he also saw a pair of crutches and a wheelchair in the room. He was likely stealing from someone who really needed those painkillers. After leaving, he immediately drove to a pharmacy and used the refill on the prescription bottle to get more pills.

By this time, Loverde was taking what amounted to 120 pills every day. Reduced to stealing drugs from the disabled, as well as using up the only available way of quickly replacing the stolen pain medication, Loverde could not deny that he had a huge problem.

Like many prescription drug addicts who do not have ready access to valid prescriptions, Loverde’s Vicodin habit exposed him to problems with the law. He was arrested twice for prescription fraud and forgery and ended up in jail for violating his probation. When the availability of Vicodin dried up he, like many other prescription drug addicts, turned to heroin. Thankfully, Michael Loverde has been off prescription drugs for over five years. He currently runs Family First Intervention, an Illinois certified drug addiction counseling practice

As Loverde’s story shows, it’s not just celebrities who have prescription drug problems. Recent studies by the National Institute of Health (NIH) have shown that over 20 percent of people in the US have misused prescription drugs (i.e., have taken a prescription drug for nonmedical reasons). The most commonly abused prescription drugs include OxyContin and Vicodin (powerful painkillers), Valium and Xanax (anti-anxiety drugs), and Ritalin and Adderall (stimulants used to treat ADHD). More alarmingly, the Centers for Disease Control reports that over 20 percent of students in high school have admitted to taking one of these often-abused medications without a prescription. Local law enforcement encounter “regular folk” addicts every day in emergency rooms, at physician’s offices, and in drug stores.

What’s causing this increase in prescription drug abuse? Experts cite the dramatic increase in the number of prescriptions being written and filled these days. In 2000, Americans filled approximately one billion prescriptions; ten years later that number has quadrupled to nearly four billion. Prescriptions for the most commonly abused medications are written by doctors and psychiatrists alike, for things like sore backs and toothaches. For addicts, these lax medical offices are like candy stores. And that’s not all. Addicts are also able to get their hands on highly potent cancer painkillers, such as Fentora or Opana, even when they are cancer-free. How do they do it? They simply ask their doctor.

Many doctors, however, object to the negative light that the prescription drug problem has shown on the medical profession, insisting that the pills are generally prescribed for legitimate purposes. The problem is that doctors have no control over what patients do with the drugs once the prescription is filled at a local pharmacy. Many doctors and medical facilities take care to ensure that they are not prescribing addictive medication to a drug addict or pill seeker. In Illinois, for example, the new state-wide prescription monitoring program provides a database that medical personnel can use to research an individual patient’s past and current prescription drug history.

No matter how diligent doctors are at making sure that they aren’t prescribing to drug addicts, there is little they can do if their patients distribute the medication to others. People like Loverde’s friend exacerbate the prescription drug problem when they offer up their own medication in order to alleviate the suffering of a friend or family member.

That’s not to say, however, that all patients who are prescribed addictive substances distribute them like candy to others. Instead, addicts get the drugs from less straight-forward methods such as raiding the medicine cabinets of family, friends, or like Loverde, perfect strangers. Due to negligent safeguarding of unused medications in the home, even the most righteous prescription for Vicodin can turn ugly if a drug addict gets his hands on the unused bottle standing forgotten in the medicine cabinet.

Why do we hold on to these old, often expired, medicines? Most Americans see prescription drugs as any other product that they buy in the marketplace – if there is any left over after they have used it, they save it for a rainy day. This hoarding of dangerous medications is a result of a combination of consumer attitudes, including having products readily available in case of emergencies (like batteries or light bulbs), and getting your money’s worth (why throw the bottle of ketchup away if there is enough left for one more burger some day). However, unlike stockpiling batteries or saving ketchup, hanging on to unused medication can lead to tragedy ranging from innocent children getting into medicine cabinets and overdosing to fueling the addiction of family or friends.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=396310