Drug Makers Come up With Plan to Curb Painkiller Abuse

By Rachel Stockton

Twenty-four manufacturers of pain killing opioids have prepared a plan to help curb and/or prevent the abuse of these drugs; morphine, oxycodone and methadone are those currently under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

These three drugs are given to those suffering from moderate to severe pain, including cancer patients.  Some doctors, however, give the drug for migraines and other ailments , leading to a steadily increasing rate of opioid abuse over the first decade of the new millennium.

According to the FDA, hundreds of accidental overdoses occur each year in the United States; the FDA is demanding that drug makers come up with a strategy to curtail prescription drug abuse that leads to accidental death.

Another reason for the increase in painkiller abuse is that drug abusers chew extended release pills in an effort to get an immediate, heroin-like high.   Earlier this year drug manufacturers convened in an effort to make the morphine in extended release pills harder for the patient to access.

The FDA Ammendment  Act o f 2007 gave the agency the authority to regulate opioids.  The FDA considered taking painkillers mixed with Tylenol off the market in early2009; however, this was not because of the codeine or hydrocodone in these drugs, but because of an increase in Tylenol poisoning.  Physicians and drug makers praised the advent of such combinations years ago because it simplified treatment. 

Drug manufacturers maintain that the Tylenol problem has more to do with over the counter medications than with prescription drugs.  Many people are uninformed when it comes to how much Tylenol is considered toxic; they also are unaware at the number of medications that have Tylenol in them. 

For example, many of the over-the-counter flu preparations have acetaminophen in addition to decongestants and antihistamines.  If a patient takes straight acetaminophen to reduce fever, and then a flu cocktail to relieve congestion, they will get more acetaminophen in their systems without even realizing it. 

At the end of the day, the FDA did not pull the plug on acetaminophen-opioid combinations; instead they are now requiring black label warnings on all such prescriptions.