CDC: Painkiller overdoses an epidemic

ATLANTA, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- About 15,000 people die each year from prescription painkiller overdoses -- more than those who die from heroin and cocaine combined -- U.S. officials said.

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said overdoses involving prescription painkillers -- a class of drugs that includes hydrocodone, methadone, oxycodone and oxymorphone -- are a public health epidemic.

"These drugs are widely misused and abused. One in 20 people in the United States, ages 12 and older, used prescription painkillers non-medically -- without a prescription or just for the 'high' they cause -- in 2010," the report said. "Drug overdose death rates have increased steadily in the United States since 1979. In 2008, a total of 36,450 drug overdose deaths were reported, with prescription opioid analgesics -- e.g., oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone -- cocaine, and heroin the drugs most commonly involved."

Nearly a half million emergency department visits in 2009 were due to people misusing or abusing prescription painkillers, the report said.

Non-medical use of prescription painkillers costs health insurers up to $72.5 billion annually in direct health care costs, CDC officials said.