Drug overdose is not a result of experimentation. It is usually the result of addiction.

Since 1999, drug overdose related deaths in Indiana increased four times. The primary substance of choice for related deaths were prescription medicines.

Someone is legally buying meds and are then reselling them for larger sums out on the streets. Someone is stealing from their parents health conditions and selling these prescriptions or using them, themselves.

Death and physical illnesses occur when people use types and doses of drugs not intended for them. They are not only ignorant as to what a drug will do, but they also may be ignorant as to the method of use for certain prescription medicines. According to the National Registry for EMT Certification, drugs properly treat illnesses at the right dose, the right route the medicine is taken, the right unexpired packaging, and the right indication, or reason for its use.

From a health related point-of-view, prescription drugs are dangerous when giving to persons to whom they are not prescribed. An emergency medical technician, or EMT, can lose his or her career license immediately, by providing a patient with a wrong drug or dose. The human body reacts differently to different substances and unique cases are not uncommon. In like manner, the levels or doses of those substances can also variably effect levels of addiction.

In the simplest way, the wrong dose and type of medicine can kill you. Prescription drug use vastly outperforms cocaine or heroin in fatalities from overdose. Users are seeking relief from substances they are not equipped, nor familiar with, to properly handle. An appearing result is the now elevated rates of overdose deaths across the country.

Experts suggest a wide variety of reasons for the national increase of prescription drug overdoses. Prescription drug use has increased on a national level by double in more than 27 states. The state of Indiana ranks 17 on the list of most yearly drug overdoses. Speculation on the larger availability of prescription drugs have been seen as reason for increase in use.

In relation to the state of Indiana, the increase in geriatrics has also been blamed as a factor to the increase in prescription drug abuse

As a result of what has been fairly shocking news, doctors have either lost their practices or have faced near similar circumstance due to “freely” given prescriptions when illnesses don’t qualify for the conditions a patient should be in to obtain special remedies.

The concern here is that whether you are a mother at home, an elderly who has never taken any type of drugs, or whether you  believe you are somehow “stronger”; any and all types of people are subject to prescription drug addiction.

Because drug use can lead to addictive behavior, they also are a concern for a cause of death. If persons use prescription drugs through addictive behavior, they potentially lose the ability to redeem their own lives while walking into the shadows of drug abuse. As that addiction dictates their increasingly bad choices. It is important to get help if you or someone know is suffering from an addiction.