Like most moms, I’m always on the alert for the latest reviews, deals, family-friendly events, recalls and other info that could affect the most precious people in my life.
This amounts to a lot of research and I wanted to share something troubling that I recently discovered: although there has been a drop in children dying from unintentional injuries, childhood deaths from poisoning increased 80% from 2000-2009. As a mother of five children, I found this shocking; how is this happening? Turns out this trend is being caused by kids and teenagers overdosing on prescription drugs—which is a huge problem here in Pennsylvania and around the country.
I’ve been reading a lot about this recently and cannot believe that prescription drugs are so easily accessible. A new study came out last month with another upsetting statistic: “younger teens are more likely to say that they can get prescription drugs than marijuana within an hour.” These kids aren’t just reaching into their parents’ medicine cabinets. Selling prescription drugs has become a lucrative business and, like they’ve done in the past, drug dealers are targeting our children.
Pharmacies need to do a better job making sure they aren’t filling prescriptions for people who will turn around and sell them on the corner. When I fill prescriptions, the pharmacy tracks my purchase through a PBM (Pharmacy Benefit Manager) system to get payment. They would know almost instantly if I was filling too many prescriptions for a certain medication (a clue that someone may be selling their medications). How are so many pills still getting into the hands of kids? Unfortunately, PBMs are only meant to track prescription purchases done using insurance and there isn’t a similar system for capturing information on people who pay without using insurance. Because of this, prescription drug dealers can go about their business undetected, simply by paying cash at the pharmacy counter. The dealers have found a way to work the system and our children are dying as a result. Why can’t we use the PBM system to better track all prescription drug purchases?
Find out what else you can do here in PA through some of these local groups: Drug Free Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Alliance for Safe & Drug Free Children. Are you as concerned about prescription drug abuse as I am?
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