White House Targets Painkiller Abuse

April 19, 2011— -- WASHINGTON -- Responding to what they say is an epidemic worse than the crack cocaine problem in the 1980s and the heroin epidemic of the 1990s combined, public health and law enforcement officials in the Obama administration have released a national anti-abuse plan for prescription drugs.

"We are in the midst of a public health crisis driven by prescription drug abuses," Gil Kerlikowske, White House Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) said at a Tuesday morning press conference at the National Press Club.

In 2007, there were 28,000 deaths from prescription drug overdoses -- five times the number in 1990, Kerlikowske said. Those deaths were driven largely by the abuse of prescription painkillers.

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One of the main goals of the plan is to cut the rate of abuse of these drugs by 15 percent within five years.

As part of the plan, the FDA announced it will enact a risk-mitigation strategy to educate patients and doctors on proper use and prescribing of extended-release prescription pain pills, such as oxycodone (Oxycontin).

The overall plan -- called "The Administration's Epidemic: Responding to America's Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis" -- supports state-based prescription drug monitoring programs; take-back programs that safely dispose of prescription narcotics; and an education program aimed at patients and healthcare providers.

Administration officials at the press conference said a bill would be introduced in Congress that would require physicians to undergo training provided by drug companies in order to write prescriptions for extended-release prescription narcotics.

But they were mum on who would introduce the bill and when. Kerlikowske said he wouldn't be touting a sweeping plan to combat prescription drug abuse if he wasn't confident Congress would pass such a bill.