Story Archives of 'drug abuse'

Over the past several months, NHPR’s health reporter Elaine Grant has been producing a series of stories on prescription drug abuse in the state. She’s looked at how abusers are buying and stealing pills, the role hospitals and pharmacies are playing in the problem, what’s being done to combat the abuse and the money that addicts are costing the state each year. We'll talk with Elaine and the people she interviewed about the growing problem of prescription drug abuse in the Granite State.

Guests

• Elaine Grant, NHPR’s health reporter
• Dr. Gil Fanciullo, director of Pain Management at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
• Philip Bradley, an assistant New Hampshire attorney general in the Medicaid Fraud unit

We'll also hear from

• Cindy Desrosiers, group coordinator for Allies in Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP), a task force aimed at preventing substance abuse in Rockingham County
• Jackie Abikoff, executive director of the Horizons Counseling Center in Gilford

Twenty million Americans are recruited into clinical trials each year. Some participants have cancer or other life threatening illnesses, but many are perfectly healthy. These healthy volunteers are often the first humans to test the safety of a new drug, years before it hits the market.

They face days and sometimes weeks of blood tests and monitoring, but they are rewarded for their time, in cash. Officially they are only paid for giving up their time for science, but some in the U.S. can make as much as $34,000 a year.

By some estimates, there are as many as 10,000 people in the United States who make their living primarily through phase one clinical trials. There’s a growing debate over whether or not volunteers should be paid. Some argue that paying volunteers puts the poorest members of society unfairly at risk, and could produce misleading data that would allow questionable treatments to enter the market.

Alison Motluck wrote about the "perils of the professional lab rat" in the most recent issue of New Scientist magazine. We're also joined by Brandon, who asked that we not use his last name. He was featured in Alison's article and has been participating in clinical trials since 2005.

New Scientist: Perils of the professional lab rat

(Photo by Ana C. via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Prescription drugs have been in the news a lot lately.
An FDA advisory committee recommended taking the narcotic painkillers Vicodin and Percocet off the market.
The DEA is investigating the role of prescription pharmaceuticals in Michael Jackson’s death.
And closer to home, a Londonderry man was sentenced to prison for possessing nearly 9,000 prescription pills.
In the first of our occasional series on prescription drug abuse in New Hampshire, health reporter Elaine Grant investigated the size of the problem.
Now, in the second story,
she looks at how the drugs get from the medicine cabinet to the street.

Drugs like Ritalin and Adderall provide just the right amount of kick and focus for our over-achieving, ultra-competitive, BlackBerry-strapped society. Unlike the theoretical scenarios that bio-ethicists fret about - designer babies or human clones, cognitive enhancement drugs are here, now - on college campuses, in suburban neighborhoods and hi-tech high rises. Yet their long-term effects are still unkown.

Margaret Talbot is reporter-at-large for The New Yorker magazine. In this week's issue, she looks at what could be the defining drugs of our age. Margaret Talbot joins us from Washington, DC.

Neuroenhancing drugs have seeped into many parts of our society, including performing musicians. We also hear from NPR’s Next Generation Radio series about how classical musicians sometimes rely on betablockers to calm their pre-show jitters. Intern Edition’s Jamie Hammond explains. Click here to listen.

The New Yorker: The Underground World of “Neuroenhancing” Drugs

Slate.com: Adderall Nation

Boston Phoenix: Blooger Says New Yorker Almost Gets it Right

(Photo by Darren Hester via Flickr/Creative Commons)

While illegal drug use among teens seems to be dropping, perfectly legal medicines like Oxycontin, Ritalin and Methadone are increasingly being misused, sometimes with serious consequences. We’ll look at the trends and how the health care system might change in response.

This program was originally broadcast on February 11, 2008

Guests

• Jacqui Abikoff, Executive Director of the Horizons Counseling Center
• Dr. Thomas Andrew, Chief Medical Examiner for the New Hampshire Department of Justice
• Ira Byock, Professor of Anesthesiology and Community and Family Medicine, Chair of Palliative Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, Director of Palliative Medicine at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and a Member of the Steering Committee for the NH Pain Initiative