Plague of prescriptions

Searching for answers ... like most problems without easy solutions, the causes of prescription drug abuse are wide ranging. Photo: Robert Banks

Despite a lively public debate about illicit drugs, the dominant drugs of addiction overtaking Western societies are those prescribed legally by trusted doctors. Prescription drugs, initially given to modulate chronic pain, reduce disabling anxiety or lift fledgling moods, are most likely to become chemicals of abuse and addiction.

The numbers are staggering.

The National Drug Strategy household survey results in 2009 reported more than 1.2 million Australians had used a pharmaceutical drug ''for a non-medical purpose''.

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Several experts, such as Professor Nick Lintzeris of Sydney University, believe as many as 100,000 Australians may have a problem with prescription painkillers. Prescribed opioids are fast replacing heroin, cocaine and ice as the drug of choice in the illicit markets.

The estimates run even higher when it comes to abuse of anti-anxiety medications known as benzodiazepines, which include drugs such as Valium and Xanax. The prescription of Xanax, in particular, has quadrupled in the past decade, despite a study finding that it had no improved clinical efficacy, suggesting abuse is likely to be a key reason for its increased usage.

The problem is hardly unique to Australia; prescription drug addiction is a problem throughout the Western world. US authorities talk about a modern-day epidemic where prescription drug addiction is killing more people than crack cocaine in the 1980s and heroin in the 1970s combined. In the past five years, prescription drug overdoses have killed more people than car accidents in the US and there have been a spate of armed robberies upon pharmacies across the country.

In Britain, a February survey by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse found that almost 80 per cent of GPs routinely prescribe drugs to which they believe the patient may be addicted.

Canadian leaders in the health industry were shocked to realise that in 2011 they had the highest per capita use of the opiate oxycodone, even higher than the US. They are frantically assessing how they can measure the depth of their problem more effectively, calling a national summit in the early part of this year.

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Plague of prescriptions