[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 25, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H599-H600]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Brown) missed Wendy's, an Ohio-based company, in his speech.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address one of our Nation's oldest and 
most difficult narcotics problems, prescription drug abuse. 
Prescription drug abuse has been a problem for decades, but recently a 
new generation of morphinelike painkillers called oxycodones has caused 
a wave of addiction and overdoses. The drug OxyContin, which is an 
oxycodone-based drug, has produced the greatest amount of publicity, 
but numerous similar drugs, such as Percocet, Percodan and Tylox, have 
also been abused.
  Last month the Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on 
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, which I chair, held 
a hearing on prescription drug abuse in Winter Park, Florida. The 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), the former chair of the subcommittee 
and a man with a long record of effective leadership on these issues, 
requested the hearing in response to a series of OxyContin-related 
deaths in central Florida.
  At the hearing the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) and I, joined by 
the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and the gentleman from Florida

[[Page H600]]

(Mr. Keller) heard testimony from government, medical and other 
witnesses about the cost of prescription drug abuse, the benefits 
afforded by these drugs, and how best to balance these two. But more 
must be done to ensure in striking this balance that we enforce the 
law, that we educate people about how to avoid such addiction, and more 
treatment specifically targeted towards such addiction.
  Prescription drug abuse presents special problems for the government, 
the medical community, and the pharmaceutical industry. On the one hand 
these powerful and dangerous drugs, with as great a capacity for 
addiction and abuse as heroin and cocaine, even though they have that 
potential, there are many ways for these drugs which have legitimate 
uses to fall in the wrong hands. Supplies of the drugs can be stolen 
from pharmacies and manufacturers and then sold back in the black 
market; doctors may intentionally or unintentionally over prescribe the 
drugs to patients, leading to addiction and abuse; or patients 
themselves may obtain illegal quantities of the drugs by shopping for 
multiple prescriptions and filling them at multiple pharmacies.
  On the other hand, these drugs have legitimate medical uses and may 
give the only possibility of relief for patients suffering from severe 
chronic pain. Many cancer patients rely on OxyContin and similar drugs.
  But however difficult it may be to strike a balance, we must find a 
way to further enforce the laws so we do not have this exploding abuse 
of these drugs that are crippling many families and individuals and 
leading to the death of many others.
  Prescription drug abuse is a very serious problem. According to the 
most recent study conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration, SAMHSA, in 2002, over 1.9 million Americans 
aged 12 or older had used OxyContin alone for nonmedical, in other 
words illegal, purposes. Prescription drug abuse is far more widespread 
than cocaine, heroin or ecstasy abuse. Only marijuana is more widely 
abused by Americans. The problem is particularly acute among our young 
people. For example, among 12- and 13-year-olds, more children abuse 
prescription drugs than even marijuana.
  One of the first things that became clear to me during the hearing is 
that the Federal Government needs to obtain and share better 
information on how these drugs are falling into the wrong hands. One 
newspaper reported that the top 12 OxyContin prescribers under Medicaid 
in Florida wrote prescriptions totaling over $15 million. While that is 
a very large number, it does not include all of the non-Medicaid 
prescriptions. The government has no practical way of keeping track of 
who is prescribing these drugs, in what amounts, and to whom.
  A number of States and many of my colleagues have proposals for 
setting up a computerized database to keep track of these drugs. While 
some may raise privacy concerns about such a database, if we do not get 
this information to law enforcement, we will never get a handle on the 
problem.
  Second, there are simply too many ways for these drugs to fall into 
the wrong hands. As the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) noted at 
the hearing, it is possible for children to go on the Internet and 
order OxyContin or other opiates without going to a physician. Even 
when children do not do that, they can often get the drugs by raiding 
their parents' medicine cabinets or getting them from their friends. We 
need more effective regulations and education to cut down on these very 
real and dangerous routes of drug diversion.
  I am encouraged by the recent decision of the DEA to explore putting 
hydrocodone combination drugs, which are based on another drug similar 
to oxycodone, on Schedule II to reflect their real potential for abuse. 
I hope the DEA, FDA and other agencies will continue to reexamine their 
strategies to find more effective ways to combat this problem.
  Finally, while it is clear that there are widely diverging opinions 
about what kinds of conditions these drugs are prescribed for, it is 
equally clear that the more uses the government approves, the more 
abuse we will have. There is a great deal of debate about whether 
OxyContin should be prescribed for moderate as opposed to severe pain. 
We will see this debate in connection with nearly every powerful drug 
because there will always be those who wish to push the envelope and 
approve the drug for more and more people, thus creating more and more 
potential for addiction and abuse.
  Those of my colleagues who consider themselves sympathetic to so-
called ``medical marijuana'' should take heed of this. While many of 
its proponents claim that marijuana would only be used medicinally, it 
is also used by many others for less serious conditions.

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