Prescription Drug Abuse – Part 1 Medical examiner's stats reveal severity
Editor’s note: Tampa Bay Newspapers begins a series this week on efforts to curtail prescription drug abuse in the county. The series continues next week.
Officials report 249 people died in Pinellas County after accidentally taking too many prescription drugs in 2010.
According to preliminary numbers reported by the District Six Medical Examiner, accidental overdoses of prescription drugs claimed about that many lives in 2011 as well.
“We’ve been seeing this trend for five, going on six years. It’s progressively getting worse,” said Bill Pellan, director of investigations at the medical examiner’s office.
In 2005, accidental deaths caused by poison, alcohol or drugs – both illegal and prescribed – accounted for 169 deaths. But those types of deaths have increased 66 percent compared to 2010. A lot of that increase can be attributed to prescription drugs, Pellan said.
Given the growing problem, the District Six Medical Examiner’s office, which covers both Pinellas and Pasco counties, began to list what types of drugs accounted for those accidental deaths. In 2009, prescription drugs alone accounted for 179 accidental deaths in Pinellas County. Thirty-nine more deaths were attributed to a combination of illegal and prescription drugs.
By comparison, only 19 people died from an overdose that included only illegal drugs, another 10 died from alcohol poisoning and two accidentally died of poisons, chemicals or an inhalant that year.
And while all other category of drug-related accidental deaths remained relatively unchanged in 2010, those caused by prescription drugs increased 16 percent. A total of 207 people died from a prescription drug overdose that year, with another 42 dying from a combination of prescription and illegal drugs.
So far, 2011 isn’t shaping up to be much better, Pellan said.
The medical examiner’s office has attributed 176 cases in Pinellas County to prescription drug abuse so far for the year. However, 92 other cases in Pinellas do not have an identified cause of death yet, pending a toxicology report.
“At least half of those probably will end up being drug-related,” Pellan said.
Cases where blunt trauma or drowning is the cause usually don’t need a toxicology report, Pellan explained. So while the report could conclude that the cause of death was natural causes, many will indicate that drugs or toxins were involved and a good portion of those will likely blame prescription drugs as the cause of death.
Toxicology reports, handled within the district six office, can take 30 to 60 days or longer to complete. The medical examiner’s annual report on their caseload for the prior year is usually published in March, Pellan said. He expects the numbers of prescription drug-related deaths to at least match up with those reported in 2010.
“I think we’re on line to have the same or more than 2010, unfortunately,” he said. “Certainly it’s more than what it was in 2009.”
In 2006, the medical examiner’s office first started noticing a dramatic increase in drug-related deaths, Pellan said. The numbers spiked 28 percent that year – from 169 deaths caused by drugs or toxins in 2005 to 216. That year also was when the office started noticing that there were more drug-related cases than those from deadly car crashes.
That trend has continued. In 2010, prescription drugs in Pinellas County alone accounted for 22 percent more deaths than all fatal vehicle crashes reported in both Pasco and Pinellas counties that year.
Local law enforcement especially has been key to detecting prescription drug deaths even before they make it to the medical examiner’s office, Pellan said. His office has worked with law enforcement agencies over the last several years, training them in what clues to look for.
Officers will note, for example, what medications the deceased was prescribed, what those drugs were treating, the date they were prescribed and the dosage, comparing all those facts to the amount of pills left behind in order to pinpoint a drug abuse problem.
Then, they can report all that information back to the professionals handling the autopsy.
“We have the playbook before the game, basically,” Pellan said. “We can focus testing on those drugs.”
Despite the climbing statistics, Pellan said he believes that growing awareness and programs could be the beginning of a solution to the problem.
“I think steps are being taken in the right direction, where we’ll start to see these numbers go down, I hope,” Pellan said. “Is it leveling off? I think it is. Hopefully, it starts to decline.”
