Prescription Drug Abuse a Serious, Growing Problem

Katy is eating a salad at a crowded Panera restaurant.

She waves a fork at me in greeting.

“I’m a health nut,” she says, digging in to her lettuce.

She hasn’t always been.

Katy, who doesn’t want her last name used for this story, has strikingly beautiful gray green eyes.

Everything about her appearance – neat brown dress, matching sandals -- is carefully tended to look wholesome.

Except she’s got tattoos on each wrist – “faith” on one, “hope” on the other.

Katy is an addict.

She works in a doctor’s office and hopes to go to college soon.

She’s been clean for two years.

She rattles off her story without flinching.

Katy: … about 14, 15 years old I was taking acid in high school, tripping all day in high school, getting drunk, thinking nobody knew in school, snorting pain pills off the back of the toilet in school, rolling there, and then finally one day it occurred to me I didn’t need to go to school to do that anymore, so I quit.

At 15, she ran away from home.

Katy: I was gone for a year. My mom thought I was dead. She used to check obituaries in the papers for bodies that were found in case it was me.

Katy was addicted to prescription narcotics.

She was particularly fond of oxycontin and of methadone – a pill version prescribed for pain, not the liquid type found in treatment clinics.

And she was stealing to support her habit.

But oxycontin, the addict’s gold standard, can cost upwards of $80 a pill.

Katy: Heroin’s a lot cheaper, so I became a junkie by the age of 18, would shoot anything that I could put into a needle, cocaine, heroin, pills, you name it.

Umm, it was quite a mess.

Officials don’t know how many Katys there are in New Hampshire, addicted or even experimenting with prescription drugs.

But statistics point to an alarmingly widespread problem.

In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control reported that New Hampshire was tied for fourth in the nation for the number of methadone deaths.

Drug overdose deaths jumped more than 400 percent from 1995 to 2007, when 168 people died.

That was more people than died in car accidents.

Lieutenant Mike Gallagher of the Seabrook Police Department has been investigating prescription drug deaths, and crimes, since 2005.

In a single year, five people died of drug overdoses in his town of 10,000 people.

The drugs come from a variety of sources, from the family medicine cabinet to drug dealers to doctors who overprescribe.

Gallagher: I wouldn’t point a finger at any physicians, whether they’re knowingly giving out these drugs, but these people are getting them, and they sell them, and they make good money off of them. And they have enough to do themselves. So it’s a big business out there.

When Seabrook saw that raft of deaths, Mike Gallagher began to realize that prescription pills had become the area’s most lethal drug problem.

Gallagher: Prescription drugs are the drug of choice in Seabrook and not just in Seabrook, it’s not just a Seabrook problem, it’s a problem everywhere.

One of the reasons, experts say, is that people mistakenly believe that prescription drugs are safe.

Surveys show that more than a third of teenagers and adults think it’s not dangerous to occasionally take prescription medications to get high.

But opiates, especially methadone, can kill quickly.

The day Gallagher investigated the death of 21-year old Kevin Cassidy, it became extremely personal.

Gallagher: He didn’t have a shirt on, he had the loose shorts that all the kids where, with the waistband of his undershorts there showing like they have to do, and I looked at him, and for a moment he looked exactly like my son. …So. That’s what, it hit home for me then, you know. It could have been my son.

Today, Gallagher is working with a seacoast area substance abuse coalition to try to keep drugs off the street.

But he says, he’s meeting obstacles, from politics to lack of resources.

Gallagher: E – Is the state doing enough? ….What do you think the state ought to be doing? G: laughs. I don’t want to step on a lot of toes.

Various towns and counties have made valiant efforts at reducing the abuse.

After eight people died in Laconia in 2007, the Laconia police department and the Belknap County Sherriff’s department created a public outreach program.

But by all accounts, the state hasn’t yet tackled the problem head on.

For several years, the AG’s office, the medical society, and others tried to get lawmakers to pass a statewide prescription drug monitoring program.

The idea is to track doctor-shoppers – people who go from doctor to doctor seeking multiple prescriptions.

But, the effort failed three times, leaving New Hampshire as the only New England state without one.

At HHS, Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Services Director
Joe Harding runs 10 regional substance abuse coalitions.

But they are devoted almost solely to fighting underage drinking.

HHS does spend $2 million annually on what Harding calls a collection of local, uncoordinated prevention programs.

Harding says he’s trying to streamline all substance abuse prevention efforts under the 10 regional coalitions.

Harding: Are we there yet for prescription drugs? Absolutely not. But is this the model that will allow us to do that for prescription drugs or whatever the case may be down the road? It’s absolutely the model that will allow us to do that.

In the meantime, the Attorney General’s office is building a new statewide task force to address the prescription drug issue.

Assistant Attorney General Philip Bradley is organizing it.

He’s been working on the issue for five years.

Bradley: It’s frustrating that the state does not have a cohesive plan on how to address prescription drug abuse.

He says the new task force will attempt to address medical, law enforcement, and public health issues.

Bradley says it should be up and running in about six months.

People like Seabrook’s Mike Gallagher hope the new task force will make a difference.

But he says the efforts are too slow.

Gallagher: Kids are dying. The kids are dying, they’re dying from these drugs.

For NHPR News, I’m Elaine Grant.