In a press conference at North Shore-LIJ’s Zucker Hillside Hospital on Monday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for passage of federal legislation to more closely control prescription of hydrocodone to combat what he called “the scourge of drug abuse in prescription drugs.”
Describing hydrocodone as a “gateway” to heroin use, he said there were 27 cases of prescription painkiller deaths on Long Island in 2012, seven of those deaths in Nassau County. He said deaths on Long Island related to heroin overdoses increased 83 percent from 2010 to 2012. In 2012, 110 people died from a heroin overdose; 83 of those people were in Suffolk County and 27 people in Nassau County. He said heroin-related arrests in in Nassau County nearly doubled between 2011 and 2012, from 228 to 427.
“Heroin drug use had increased and the increase has come from the use of prescription drub abuse,” Schumer said.
He said the cost of heroin is now lower than the cost of Vicodin and other forms of hydrocodone, so people who become addicted to hydrocodone “gradually shift” to heroin use.
Schumer advocated enactment of his bipartisan plan he is cosponsoring, the Safe Prescribing Act of 2013, to reclassify hydrocodone as a Schedule II controlled substance, requiring a written or electronic prescription signed by a doctor. Schumer is cosponsoring the legislation with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).
Under the law, each hydrocodone prescription issued could not exceed a 30-day supply. Medical practitioners could issue a maximum of three prescriptions for the drug at once.
He said New York State already classifies hydrocodone as a Schedule II controlled substance, but federal legislation is needed to ensure that abusers or dealers can’t obtain the drug from neighboring states.
“The problem is it’s overprescribed both in the number of prescriptions and the number of pills,” Schumer said.
He said when his wife recently received a hydrocodone prescription following a wisdom tooth extraction, she only used three pills for the pain but had been given a prescription for 60 pills.
Schumer said the drug has sparked a “huge” black market with rings of drug thieves robbing pharmacies or running what he called “pill mills” to have single prescriptions for the drug filled out multiple times. He said he and fellow lawmakers are pressuring the Federal Drug Administration to prohibit production of generic forms of hydrocodone, which can be broken down into powder form and snorted or injected.
“It’s a crisis we’ve never experienced here before,” said Jeffrey Reynolds, executive director of the Long Island Coalition on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.
He said the Long Island Coalition on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence was seeing 100 cases of hydrocodone addiction per month four years ago and is now seeing 700 cases each month. He said the federal legislation Schumer is proposing would improve the situation and “reduce the violence from this addiction.”
In 2011, a pharmacy robbery in Medford resulted in the deaths of four innocent people. A federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent was killed a few months later when a Seaford pharmacy was robbed.
Bruce Goldman, director of substance abuse services at Zucker Hillside Hospital, said opiate abuse is the main reason people are currently seeking substance abuse treatment. Of 500 patients in treatment at the hospital for substance abuse, Goldman said 99 percent started by using prescription drugs.
“The fact that a drug precedes it is because it’s in medicine cabinets,” Goldman said.
Schumer expressed confidence in the chances for the bipartisan legislation to limit hydrocodone prescriptions to pass in the current Congressional session.
“I think it will have bipartisan support. Why wouldn’t you support it?” he said.
Reach reporter Richard Tedesco by e-mail at rtedesco@theislandnow.com or by phone at 516.307.1045 x204. Also follow us on Twitter @theislandnow1 and Facebook at facebook.com/theislandnow.
