Prescription pills are controlled substances and some can become dangerous by taking it simultaneously.
According to a study that was recently published by The Brown University Digest of Addiction Theory and Application says that students who take pills for non-medical reasons are at an increased risk of drug abuse.
Dr. Sean Esteban McCabe conducted a web survey to about 3,639 students and he found out that four kinds of non-medical prescription drugs were being taken. They were called Opioid, a pain reliever, stimulant, a medication for ADHD, and a pill for sleeping and anxiety.
According to Camp Recovery Center, a Heath Group Comprehensive Outpatient program that treats addicts in the US, the most addictive drugs are painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin for pain. There are also other addictive drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that are used for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Drugs are also affecting our favorite celebrities who go down this road and end up going into cardiac arrest because of the combination of pills they are taking is lethal.
Vicodin, Valium, and Soma, a muscle relaxer, were allegedly found at the scene of actor Corey Haim’s death.
According to Dr Bruce Goldberger, a Director of Toxicology at Florida College of Medicine, “Haim had an enlarged heart and fluid in the lungs which could be the cause of taking too many drugs over a long period of time.”
He also was suffering from “flu-like symptoms around the time of his death,” according to People magazine.
It was speculated in the late 80’s Haim was doing drugs and drinking alcohol. He then went in and out of rehab in the early 2000’s until he was on the way to recovery.
Haims toxicology report will take three to four weeks to confirm the cause of his death.
In a February 2010 issue of People, Brittany Murphy, had a heart murmur, pneumonia and took multiple prescription pills for pain and depression.
Murphy was most recognized in the movie Clueless as Tai, a transfer student who becomes friends with Cher, played by Alicia Silverstone. Murphy recently died at the age of thirty-two.
Heath Ledger, according to a January issue of People, had trouble sleeping and was taking six types of pills that helped anxiety, pain, sleeping and pneumonia.
Ledger, who became successful in both The Dark Knight and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, his last two films, was very close to making it in Hollywood again. But because of the lethal combination of pills he died at the age of 28.
In 2004, Center for Disease Control & Prevention said that 14 million patients abuse their medications and 20, 000 cases result in death.
In Bloomsburg BusinessWeek, “medical doctors and pharmacists don’t share information and when the patients step into the office, the doctors assume they’re drug free.”
According to Lindsey Schnabel, assistant director of the Drug Information Center at University of Missouri-Kansas City, Ledger probably had one doctor in the US and another elsewhere because of the two types of sleep aids and two types of anti-anxiety pills he owned. The Drug Enforcement Administration calls it “doctor shopping.”
One of the nurses at DCCC said over the years they haven’t kept records of pills being taken.
