Wednesday, September 24, 2008
So I was in class this week learning about medication errors and bad side effects from inappropriately prescribed drugs. My teacher starts talking about this drug study that was done in Utah. My initial thoughts were "oh, it's probably about how there's a lot of Mormon's in Utah and we don't drink or smoke". Unfortunately it was all about how much methadone is used in Utah. If you don't know much about methadone, check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methadone In a nutshell you need methadone if you have very severe pain (think cancer) or are addicted to heroin. Here are your fun facts about methadone use in Utah:
- From 1997-2004 methadone prescriptions increased 727%
- Accidental methadone-related deaths increased 1770% in the same time period
- Methadone-related ER visits increased 612% over that time period
Way to go Beehive State! Even New Mexico feels bad for you.
3 comments:
Yeah it really sucks that you have to go into a back room and sign your life away just to get sudafed from the grocery store because it is an ingredient in making meth.
Hey Natey,
One of the ladies I carpooled with last year has a prescription for methodone for "chronic pain." I'm not saying she doesn't suffer from pain; I believe she does, but she also functions pretty well, so I'm just not sure that she really needs to be on something that crazy if she's not in the hospital. Or maybe she functions so well because she's looped up on the drug. So I didn't find out she was on it until the last 2 weeks of school, then I was just counting the days until she wasn't driving Kayli to school anymore! Scary!
Yeah, I don't know why people that are on methadone like to advertise that they're on methadone. Whenever people come to the pharmacy and start talking about their methadone I'm instantly suspicious. I once had a lady telling me about how she was in a methadone clinic and she was almost bragging about it.
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