Are American Doctors Still Overprescribing?
In April 2017, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sponsored a National Prescription Drug Take Back Day to collect unused prescriptions across the country. The staggering quantities of drugs collected seems like conclusive proof that doctors must still be prescribing too many drugs.
Here’s a look at some of the results of this collection effort.
- In New York State, 37,769 pounds of medications were collected by law enforcement agencies working in coordination with the DEA. That’s 18 TONS.
- In Ohio, arguably already the epicenter of opioid addiction, 16 TONS were collected.
- All by itself, Plano, Texas collected more than a ton of medications.
- Vermont collected 2.5 tons of drugs.
- In Michigan, ten tons were dropped off in just a four-hour period, the most ever collected during these annual events.
Last Drug Take Back Day Was Just a Year Ago
It’s a little hard to believe that this tonnage of drugs could need to be disposed of. After all, the last Drug Take Back Day was just a year ago. And many communities and even drugstores have permanent disposal drop boxes so residents can get rid of pills whenever they want. Here’s some figures from earlier years:
2016: 447 tons
2015: 350 tons
2013: 324 tons
In all, somewhere in the vicinity of 3,700 TONS of medications have been dropped off over the last ten years.
That’s more than seven million pounds of drugs.
Some of these prescriptions could have been expired or just not needed any more. Undoubtedly, not all of them were addictive. But doesn’t this give you the impression that doctors must still be overprescribing for this many tons of drugs to be collected each year?
One of the many actions that must be taken to successfully fight our epidemic of opioid use and overdoses is bringing prescribing down to reasonable levels to only prescribing what’s medically necessary. The point we’re at now, changing prescribing practices must also include caring for those who are already dependent on their medications and helping them ease off any drugs they can do without. There are definite signs that these changes are occurring but this massive tonnage of drugs collected this year seems to indicate that they are not occurring fast enough.
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