By John Amaruso
Mayor Bloomberg has taken action to combat the epidemic of prescription pill addiction by limiting access to painkillers for hospital patients. The plan would severely limit access to some of the more notorious prescription painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet, while drugs like Oxycontin, a powerful painkiller derived from the poppy seed thebaine, will become virtually non existent in hospital emergency rooms.
Critics of the Mayor's plan claim that this would only penalize the poor who's only means of available health care come from emergency room visits. The Mayor fought back against the claim, saying the epidemic of painkiller addiction must be addressed and overcome. ""There's nothing that you can possibly do where somebody isn't going to suffer, and it's always the same group claiming, 'Everybody is heartless.' Come on, this is a very big problem." said Mayor Bloomberg after critics lambasted the measure.
Mayor Bloomberg stated that over 250,000 people over the age of 12 are addicted to painkillers. The Mayor said his measures would help reduce excess drugs that are prescribed to law abiding patients from transferring to the hands of drug dealers and users. "If you break a leg, you're going to be in pain, nothing wrong with getting something that reduces the pain,... But if you get 20 days worth of pills and you only need them three days, there's 17 days sitting there. Invariably some of the kids are going to find them, or you're going to take them and get addicted." added Mayor Bloomberg.
Violent robberies at pharmacies across the country have shined light on the growing prescription pill problem in the United States, as hundreds of robberies are committed for the sole purpose of obtaining these highly addictive drugs.
According to the CDC, prescription drug overdoses have more than tripled in the United States since 1990, and it is estimated that 100 people a day die from prescription drug overdoses.
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