Unlike most street drugs, the problem has its roots in two disparate parts of the country — Appalachia and affluent suburbs, said Pete Jackson, president of Advocates for the Reform of Prescription Opioids.
“Now it’s spreading from those two poles,” Jackson said.
The AP analysis used drug data collected quarterly by the DEA’s Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System. The DEA tracks shipments sent from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals, practitioners and teaching institutions and then compiles the data using three-digit ZIP codes. Every ZIP code starting with 100-, for example, is lumped together into one figure.
The AP combined this data with census figures to determine effective sales per capita.
A few ZIP codes that include military bases or Veterans Affairs hospitals have seen large increases in painkiller use because of soldier patients injured in the Middle East, law enforcement officials say. In addition, small areas around St. Louis, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Newark, N.J., have seen their totals affected because mail-order pharmacies have shipping centers there, said Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.
Many of the sales trends stretch across bigger areas.
Nice of you to join us! It is an EPIDEMIC of wide proportion!!! It is the noitans worst enemy! Get rid of the Dr. That are handing them out like pez candy and just maybe #1 people will hit off their lazy ass to work and stop taking disability and welfare. (stop playing their game!) # 2 save lives, but we need caring resources for long term help! (these people can no longer function in society) It is not just the surface we are looking at. I know my niece has been handed drugs for 10 years from doctors! They know she is an addict .rotten teeth, no brain! I have friends whom families have been ruined because the resources have taken every penny. Just saying .it is a terrible, terrible disease! Please help!