Barbara Boxer: “last week I introduced The Combating Prescription Drug Abuse Act, a bill to create a commission to recommend best…”

“last week I introduced The Combating Prescription Drug Abuse Act, a bill to create a commission to recommend best practices for preventing and reducing prescription drug abuse. I believe this bill is a necessary step in addressing our Nation's fastest-growing drug problem, which has been classified as an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 52 million people--20 percent of those aged 12 and older--have used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons at least once in their lifetimes. Nearly one-third of people aged 12 and over who used illicit drugs for the first time in 2009 began by abusing a prescription drug. In 2008, the number of opioid pain reliever deaths throughout our population was four times higher than cocaine and heroin deaths combined. This epidemic ruins the lives of all segments of our population, and the problem is only getting worse, especially for women. Men are still more likely to die of prescription painkiller overdoses--over 10,000 deaths in 2010--but women are tragically catching up. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey earlier this month found a 400 percent increase in women dying from prescription painkiller overdoses between 1999 and 2010, compared to 265 percent among men. During that time, nearly 48,000 women died of prescription painkiller overdoses. In 2010, prescription drugs were involved in 85 percent of the drug- specified deaths among women.…”