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The abuse of and addiction to prescription drugs is as big or perhaps a greater tragedy than the addiction to illicit drugs. In so many cases, people become addicted to prescription drugs unintentionally. Other people, particularly young people, become addicted to prescrtiption drugs after just trying them a few times at parties or with groups of friends.

In the first case, doctors prescribe prescription drugs without themselves being fully informed of the dangers of addiction or abuse. Pharmaceutical companies are in part to blame in this area. As in the example of the pharmaceutical company Purdue -- they were fined hundreds of millions of dollars for false and misleading marketing information on the drug OxyContin (generic name oxycodone). Doctors were told to use OxyContin instead of older drugs but Purdue failed to warn them of its addictiveness. OxyContin was supposedly better because it was a very strong painkiller formuated to be time-release. However, all a user had to do to get around the time-release formulation was crush or chew the tablet to get a heroin-like high.

Similar problems exist with other painkillers. It is just too easy to bec ome addicted to Vicodin, Percoset, Darvon or a dozen other drugs. Some people become addicted after using a prescription painkiller properly. As tolerance builds, they look for more and more of the drug, finally resorting to doctor-shopping to get enough of the drug just to feel "normal."

Benzodiazepines are also very widely available and highly addictive. Drugs in this class include Valium, Xanax and Ativan. As a tolerance to a drug builds up which is part of the pathyway to addiction, some people may take 20 to 30 Valium or Xanax a day.

The  problems with addiction to prescription drugs are many: harm to physical health, deterioration in mental capacity and clarity of thinking, deterioration in lifestyle including theft to support the drug habit, illegal doctor-shopping or prescription fraud to acquire the drugs, neglect of family, job, school and so on. 

 Sadly, some people begin abusing prescription drugs because they think they may be safer as they are prescribed by doctors and are manufactured under controlled conditions. The outcome is the same as buying heroin from a street corner dealer: addiction. 

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