Prescription Drugs in the Emergency Room

• In 2000, 43 percent of those who ended up in hospital emergency rooms from drug overdoses-nearly a half million people-were there because of misusing or abusing prescription drugs.
  
  
• In seven cities in 2000 (Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Seattle, and Washington, DC) 626 people died from overdose of painkillers and tranquilizers. By 2001, such deaths had increased in Miami and Chicago by 20 percent.
  
  
• From 1998 to 2000, the number of people entering an emergency room because of misusing or abusing hydrocodone (Vicodin®) rose 48 percent and oxycodone (Oxycontin®) rose 108 percent. The rates are intensifying: from mid-2000 to mid-2001, oxycodone went up in emergency room visits 44 percent.