The abuse of the prescription drug Dilaudid is rapidly growing.

Dilaudid is a semi-synthetic drug and both an opiate and a true narcotic, similar to heroin and other opiates. It is used in medicine as an alternative to morphine.  A person who becomes addicted to Dilaudid most often begins for a legitimate ailment. They then unintentionally become addicted.

Dilaudid Addiction

Prescription drug abuse is on the rise, according to DEA statistics, and The Atlanta Recovery Center Drug Rehab in GA issued a warning.

“Once addicted, and no longer able to get legitimate prescriptions for Dilaudid, they may resort to what is called doctor shopping,” comments Mary Rieser, Executive Director. “They will see many doctors, going to ‘pain management clinics,’ and pretend to be sick to obtain Dilaudid. Dilaudid addiction is common place in today’s society and can happen to anyone.”

Dilaudid is eight times strong than morphine and four time stronger than heroin.  It is a classified as Schedule II narcotic, meaning that it has extra potential for drug abuse and drug addiction.

In areas where heroin is not available, this drug is the next best substitute.  One recovering addict in The Atlanta Recovery Center Drug Rehab Program in GA even claimed that it was better than heroin. “It’s clean, and you never know what’s going to be in heroin.”

The user may think that it is safe, but it has a large range of side effects.  These include light-headedness, dizziness, sedation, constipation, nausea, vomiting, and sweating.  In severe cases people may suffer fatal respiratory depression and circulatory system depression or collapse, or cardiac arrest.

They stop breathing or have a heart attack.

Since withdrawal symptoms from Dilaudid can occur four to five hours after the last dose, and withdrawal symptoms usually last 7 to 10 days, users may respond to the pain of Dilaudid withdrawal by taking another dose, without realizing they have become addicted.

Ms. Rieser says, “We are seeing more and more people enter rehab for addiction to prescription drugs, and Dilaudid abuse is growing rapidly in the Southeastern Region.  In the last year, we have seen more and more people enter our rehab for addiction to Dilaudid.”

For more information on drug addiction rehabilitation or drug education, call The Atlanta Recovery Center of GA at 1- 877-236-3981.

Well done to this gentleman for managing to return to pharmacology several times and regaining his license after treatment.  However, is that very wise?    It seems that he is returning to society under the most difficult of circumstances.  Every day he has temptation all around him and if he messes up there is quite a bit at stake – others’ lives.

Oxycontin, Dilaudid, Vicodin, Xanax and Adderall – day in and day out he is dispensing these.  He knows what they taste like and what it feels like if he takes one.  Every day he is reminded of the high.  It’s kind of cruel to even let him go back.

Why did we send him back to be around his pills?  Is there a shortage of pharmacists?

Well done to him and his treatment center if he makes it.  We need an update on this story in a year.

“They had him cold. A secret camera caught the pharmacist helping himself to drugs off the shelves and downing them on the job. He was taken away in handcuffs and arrested, but on the second day of his trial, he got off with a light prison sentence, probation and regular drug testing.

He said he never harmed or killed a customer by giving out incorrect dosages or drugs while under their influence himself. As his addiction worsened, he’s certain he was headed to an overdose or other fatal accident had he not gotten help in time.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-md.marbella04oct04,0,2706724.story

Oxycontin, Dilaudid, Vicodin, Xanax and other drugs like Adderall quite frequently wind up in the wrong hands.  This is no secret and that many people are dying should come of no surprise.

These drugs are sold by “passive pushers.”

Because of the nature of the addiction of these drugs most abusers are going to need some kind of treatment.  Many of them are walking around with a condition just as fatal as stage 4 cancer – they could go at any moment.

Rising rates of prescription-drug overdoses have propelled drug-related fatalities to the top of the accidental-death list in a growing number of states, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Associated Press reported Sept. 30 that the CDC said that while automobile crashes remain the top cause of accidental death nationally, drug-related incidents caused more deaths in 16 states — double the number of states in 2003. In 2006, 45,000 Americans died from car crashes, while 39,000 died from drug-related causes (no data is yet available for 2007 or 2008).

http://www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2009/in-some-states-more-die-from.html