Global Rise In Prescription Drug Abuse

When speaking of prescription drugs, you might imagine something your doctor has recommended to stop something that ails you. He or she has considered your height and weight as well as the potency of the medication he or she has prescribed to you so that the drug will not harm you. These drugs are generally pretty expensive, but safe. To people in developed countries, safety would be enough to pay the price while others don’t have to worry so much about price because of insurance.
However, what happens when people in developing countries have ailments? They have neither the resources nor the money to pay for prescription medications. What do they turn to? Unregulated markets, such as the black market, are usually a popular answer. The drugs found here are cheaper and easier to access. However, these drugs, half of which are counterfeit, are not really safe. Counterfeit drugs are homemade, possibly from recipes of unknown sources. This means that the dosage could be incorrect for the person buying them or could contain harmful substances.
Still, in other countries such as South Asia and Africa, abuses of certain prescription drugs have surpassed abuse of illicit street drugs such as cocaine and heroin. People have started to realize that prescription drugs can be just as potent, if not more potent than, street drugs. As a result, the black market is prospering with fulfilling demand of knock-off prescription drugs.
Disturbingly, reports in Scandinavia have revealed a spike in the unauthorized production of a certain drug that when used inappropriately, can be named a date rape drug.
This problem seems to be overlooked worldwide. What can be done to control it? Since these drugs can be blamed for an increase in deaths, it seems to me that something should be done. Shockingly these prescription recipes are posted online as one report claimed. I know that there is such a thing as free speech here, but where does it stop? Shouldn't the display of prescription drugs be available only to pharmacist and doctors? If a nation cares for its people, it seems that there would be some type of regulation here. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255758,00.html
Mindy Collins