Are we really a nation of prescription drug addicts and if so, who is to blame?

[Notsoyummymummy1]

According to the Daily Mail last week more Britons die from abusing painkillers and tranquillisers than from heroin and cocaine!! Does anyone have experience of this? If it is true surely we can't just blame doctors for giving them out - we are to blame surely if we want pills to fix everything!

My only personal experience is of dd having to wait for years before she could be prescribed AD's and adequate painkillers. She had pretty well dropped out of school and was hiding under a blanket. But doctors explained very carefully why they were being cautious and only resorting to medication as a last resort and only after she had reached a certain age. I don't want those years back though...

Do the stats of people dying include suicides though? Because that would explain the high proportion of painkillers - they are quite simply more lethal than most other drugs. So not necessarily a case of someone being hooked, but more that this is one drug that is easily accessible and surprisingly effective if you want to die.

you try getting them 'just given out' when there is someone with chronic pain in the house.

Sympathy's to Cory's daughter. When doctor after doctor says 'it is stress' it can actually drive someone to think vaguely about suicide. Thank goodness for the doctors who do recognise real problems.

I think it mainly is down to what sort of person they are prescribed to. My DGPs have stockpiles of tramadol, dyhydracodeine and codeine phosphate but neither rarely takes anything stronger than ibroprofen. Me with an addictive personality and previous drug problems if I was prescribed the same drugs I could easily form an addiction.

It's also worth taking in to account that people aren't necessarily getting prescriptions from their dr. With the Internet it's made it fairly easy to buy drugs off the Internet I used to buy Valium to help with come downs and my dsd used to buy Zopiclone.

The thing with the comparison to heroin and cocaine a lot of the drugs we are talking about have some of the same chemical make up

surely we can't just blame doctors for giving them out

Umm, why not ? Or at least partially.

When's the last time a doctor told you Yeah they might kill you no worries , when they gave out a script for painkillers ?

People have always used substances to try and take the edge off - all sort of drugs used to be freely available. Also lots of heavy drinking & smoking as well.

With drugs being much more controlled, smoking being socially unacceptable and excess alcohol consumption being all over the press I think people are using OTC painkillers instead & also more people being prescribed drugs.

It would be really interesting to find out how the overall problem / ongoing use of all substances has changed over the years.

I'm unfortunately hooked on Nurofen+ (contains codeine)

My addiction started after being given strong codeine based painkillers after an op.

I don't blame the doctors but I wish to God they'd told me about the addictive nature of them.

Clementine, sorry to hear this - is any help available? Does anything else stop your pain?

For everyone else: Codeine isn't addictive for everyone (nor does everyone get a high, not sure if it applies to you) and is crucial to any semblance of normal life in this house. Wish it wasn't but the disease is worse than the side effects.

all painkillers have the warnings written on and in the packet. The 'doctors giving out the script' probably assume that people read the information.