Prescription Drug Abuse

Course overview

Grim headlines are familiar; celebrities such as Whitney Houston and Heath Ledger who have died from overdoses of legal drugs. At some point everyone needs pain medicine; from Tylenol to prescription strength opioids; and at some point everyone suffers from anxiety and needs prescription strength medicines. Unfortunately the people using the medicines, and sometimes the doctors prescribing them, do not know all the drugs’ dangers, and in this case, what you don’t know can hurt you—even kill you. Fueling the surge in deaths are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another, or alcohol. Among the most commonly abused are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax, Soma and Fentanyl—a painkiller that comes in the form of patches and lollipops and is a hundred times more powerful than morphine. These drugs now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. This course will teach you when and what to use for pain.