HALT Recovery Central's Addiction Blog

The United States is not the only place where abuse of prescription pain medications is a growing problem. A study from Toronto reveals that deaths from opioid use in Ontario have doubled since 1991 and deaths related to OcyContin have increased five-fold. Opioids, also known as narcotic pain relievers, are among the most commonly prescribed medications in Canada.
Deaths from opioid use increased from 13.7 deaths per million in 1991 to 27.2 death per million in 2004, the study reported.

Physicians at St. Michael’s Hospital reviewed nearly 7,100 files at the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario and compared them to data on physician visits and medication prescriptions and to the sales of prescription drugs.

Ocycodone Use Skyrockets

According to a St. Michael’s Hospital news release, these were key findings of the study:

• Prescriptions for oxycodone rose by more than 850 per cent during the study period. This increase was much larger than for any other opioid. Oxycodone accounted for about one-third of the almost 7.2 million prescriptions for opioids dispensed in Ontario in 2006.
• The increase in deaths was especially pronounced after OxyContin was added to the provincial drug benefit plan in 2000. Over the next five years, deaths related to any opioid increased by 41 per cent, and the number of deaths related to oxycodone (the active ingredient in OxyContin) rose fivefold.
• Deaths from prescription opioids in Ontario far outnumbered those from heroin.
• Most opioid-related fatalities (54 per cent) were accidental. The manner of death was undetermined in 22 per cent of cases and deemed to be suicide in 24 per cent.
• Most people whose deaths involved an opioid had visited a doctor and received a prescription for the drug in the month before they died.

“These findings highlight the tremendous societal burden of opioid-related morbidity and mortality and morbidity” says the study’s co-author Dr. David Juurlink. “Patients and doctors may not fully appreciate the potential danger of these drugs, particularly when they are taken in combination with other sedating drugs or alcohol.”