The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is a semi-official organisation that monitors if countries implement agreements made by the United Nations on drug control. They just published their annual report. In it are interesting numbers about abuse but it contains also startling evidence that the writers of this annual report haven't got a clue what is happening in the real world.
Simply put: they still think that you can send your grandmother to her doctor, claiming she doesn't sleep to well or that her leg hurts so much. The medication she is prescribed is then 'diverted' and can be used by you. Only in the last paragraph of the press release the INCB acknowledges that "the increasing use of internet as a global drug market has further contributed to the spread in the abuse of prescription drugs".
But it still makes an interesting read. The abuse of prescription drugs has already surpassed abuse of illicit drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, in some parts of the world. For example, in the United States, the abuse of prescription drugs, including pain killers, stimulants, sedatives and tranquilizers, has gone beyond the abuse levels of practically all illicit drugs, with the exception of cannabis. The abuse rate is higher than that of drugs as extacy, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroine. The number of Americans who abuse controlled proscription drugs nearly doubled from 7.8 million to 15.1 million from 1992 to 2003. Abuse of Oxycodone (OxyContin®), a painkiller, increased by almost 40%, to an annual prevalence of 5.5% among students in their final year of secondary school from 2002 to 2005. Hydrocodone (Vicodin®) is also widely abused, with a prevalence of 7.4% among college students in 2005.
The demand for these drugs is so high, that it has given rise to a new problem - that of counterfeit products. Strong demand on the illicit markets of Scandinavia for flunitrazepam (Rohypnol®), a sedative, is increasingly met by illicitly manufactured counterfeit preparations. The demand of the illicit market in North America for OxyContin® has lead to distribution of counterfeit products containing illicitly manufactured fentanyl.
An equally serious consequence is that abuse of prescription drugs can have lethal effects. An increasing number of deaths related to abuse of narcotic drugs, including fentanyl and oxycodone have been recorded in North America and Europe.
Aggravating the risk is the tendency of drug abusers to create their own recipies - for instance they remove, with the help of instructions freely available on the internet, the active substances from high dosage formulations and separate drugs from inactive ingredients, making them even more potent.
It makes one wonder why some governments are waging a war on drugs when they stubbornly forget to look in the obvious direction. Want an answer? It's all about politics and it's all about money. It's politics because politicians never were interested in drugs and drug abuse in the first place. They are in politics for the voters and personal power. If voters want a war on drugs, they will get one. But they direct the war in a direction that will not hurt the companies (read: sponsors) that create these equally potent drugs.
Because the Vicodin®, abused by Dr. House ("he solves mysteries where the villain is a medical malady and the hero is a irreverent, controversial doctor who trusts no one, least of all his patients"), you order via an online pharmacy is exactly the same product from exactly the same company as the Vicodin you get from your doctor.
Or isn't it?