Prescription drug abuse: A ‘silent epidemic’

Of all the substances Sam Martinez has abused and there have been many pills were the easiest to score.

She just went to her usual dealers: old people.

A lot of elderly people that need extra money and that dont use all their meds sell them, said Martinez.

Martinez, 26, has abused various substances, starting with marijuana, since her teens. For a while, she smoked weed and used meth and pills daily.

She knew the dangers of meth. Not even once, she said, parroting the theme of the Montana Meth Projects in-your-face ads.

But when it came to pills, not so much. Prescription drug abuse tiptoes under the radar, cloaked in the white-coated respectability of a doctors office or pharmacy.

The biggest problem we have to overcome is (the attitude that), Its just a pill. ... Its safe. Its prescribed by a doctor. Its not being made in a truck in the backwoods, said Missoula Police Detective Dean Chrestenson, the departments first full-time prescription drug diversion detective.

The problem cuts across age and class, from honors students chasing better test scores to junkies chasing a high that became more elusive during the meth crackdown. Doctors tend to addicted newborns whose mothers used, and also nursing home patients who popped Valium in the 60s and now maintain their addictions with painkillers.

Weve had older couples drive from the north side of the state to Missoula to sell pills ... and young people in high school trading pills they get from home, Chrestenson said.

Coroners deal with the worst cases, a sad statistic whose numbers have risen steadily since 2000.

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Prescription drug abuse: A ‘silent epidemic’