The Integrated System of Analysis and Prediction Abuse and Addiction (SIAPAD) of the Lombardy Region, in the June 2016 report, pointed out that about half a million people used an opioid drug in Lombardy during the year, 31.9% of these outside of a therapeutic treatment.
22% of the people who took these drugs got them without a prescription. The SIAPAD report found that the number of people who have used opioid drugs without a prescription is greater than the number of those who have taken heroin. Although taking opiates out of medical control does not mean having taken them improperly, they are still psychoactive substances that can cause overdose and addiction.
The Addiction to painkillers is a form of dependence on both psychological and physiological deriving abuse or medicinal misuso (painkillers, analgesics, anti-inflammatories, opiates). In recent years there has been an increasing consumption of Painkillers (PK) based on active ingredients such as: Hydrocodone (Vicodin), Hydromorphone (Dilaudid), Meperidine (Demerol) and Oxycodone (OxyContin).
Compared to other drugs of abuse, these are simple medicines to be found even without a doctor’s prescription, low cost and with very similar effects to other psychoactive substances. Furthermore, the classification of “drug” is more reassuring and less stigmatized than that of “drug”, but a misused opioid drug , and outside of medical supervision, has typical consequences of Substance Dependence Disorder (DUS), such as craving, tolerance, abstinence and gradual impairment of personal functioning.
There are not rare cases in which people begin to use PK under medical prescription (for example following an intervention) and subsequently seek and use the drug for the activating or relaxing sensations it induces.
When the use is repeated over time, the first signs of addiction to the substance begin to appear (need to increase the dose of medicine to continue to obtain the same effects), of withdrawal from the substance (psycho-physical symptoms in correspondence with the suspension of the drug). ‘intake) and craving (intrusive thoughts on the substance, on its finding and on its intake and compulsive desire for the substance).
Some authors have spoken of “accidental heroin addiction” referring to heroin addiction that often results from repeated PK abuse, as these substances have essentially the same psychotropic effects.
Below is a list of ” alarm bells ” useful for assessing whether a PK addiction is developing or has already established:
- Often think about medications or the next intake;
- Do not literally follow the medical prescription (doses and times of intake);
- Try to find PK without a prescription;
- Having used PK for long periods of time;
- Feel discomfort or irritation if the drug is voluntarily or involuntarily stopped.
