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Drug Czar Praises Local Painkiller Abuse Programs

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 4, 2007

TAMPA - To John Gibson, some doctors are "legal drug dealers."

The 30-year-old Tampa man said he is recovering from addiction to prescription painkillers he started taking after an all-terrain vehicle accident and a work-related injury when he was employed at a sawmill.

He said he's lost cousins and friends to prescription drug overdoses, and he blames doctors who he says were too ready to write prescriptions for large quantities of pain pills.

John Walters, U.S. drug czar, said Gibson's story is not unusual.

While in town Monday to hail local drug programs, Walters said prescription drug abuse has eclipsed that of other substances. In the past six years, oxycodone and hydrocodone use in Florida increased 136 percent, Walters said. Overdose deaths involving those drugs far outpace heroin overdoses, he added. "The quantities here are way out of balance with legitimate medical need."

In national surveys, 50 percent of young people said they don't think prescription drugs are as dangerous as street drugs, he added.

About 19 percent of people who report prescription drug abuse say they got the drugs from their doctors, Walters said.

"It's not a sinister dealer," he said. "It's someone providing care who they turn to for help."

Walters was at the Drug Abuse Comprehensive Coordinating Office to congratulate the agency and the University of South Florida College of Medicine for their programs, such as training physicians on properly prescribing and screening patients for prescription drug abuse and dependence.

"Thank you for the contribution many of you are making," he said.

Gibson said he first was introduced to prescription painkillers in 1999. The drugs first killed his physical pain, and he later turned to them to numb his emotional pain when family members died.

Taking the drugs made him feel great at first. "I felt like I was 15 years old again," he said.

At his lowest point, he said, he was drugged up at a local motel when police came to arrest him. Gibson said he thanked the officer, saying, "You're rescuing me."

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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