According to the National Institutes of Health, about 20 percent of people in the U.S. have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons
UPPER PENINSULA -- Prescription drugs are now the second most commonly abused category of drugs. Believe it or not, that makes it worse than cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, and other similar, illegal drugs.
Prescription drugs can be the drug of choice for anyone of any age. But UPSET detectives are seeing the majority of those abusers in the U.P. as young people, in their twenties.
"As a drug team, we are continuing to fight the battle so to speak, and I believe we're making some type of progress on that," says Detective Lieutenant George Sailer.
Prescription drug complaints are down 13 percent from last year.
"We are attempting to identify those who are illegally obtaining prescription drugs and selling prescription drugs, and trying to make arrests and prosecute those responsible for that," Sailer adds.
The three prescriptions UPSET sees the most abuse of are hydrocodone or oxycontin, suboxone, and morphine. A lot of these prescriptions are easily accessible.
Proper disposal is only half the battle.
While some of them are stolen, the prescription drug trade itself is turning into an industry all its own.
David Oglesby told us on our Facebook page, "You hear of so many people who know someone who sells their pills."
And that's exactly what's happening. Here's the way Detective Sailer explained it to me: someone acts as a 'wholesaler' per se. They send people out to obtain prescriptions from doctors legally. The wholesaler then pays those people for the prescriptions and turns around and sells them for a profit to someone else.
So are people taking these drugs for pain that is real or to get high? Addiction specialists say it's both.
"It may be to get a high, it may be to control some anxiety, sleep, whatever it is they might be experiencing, thinking, 'Well, a pill's going to help it,'" says addiction specialist Dr. John Lehtinen. "And unfortunately, many of these have addiction potential if people continue to use them."
If you know someone is abusing their own prescription, doctors advise confronting that individual with the problem.
Where can you get help? Dr. Lehtinen is the only certified addiction specialist in the U.P., but if you're not living near the Marquette area, he told me there are several community services that offer substance abuse treatment, like the Great Lakes Recovery Center, (906) 228-9699.
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