For pain-killer addicts
‘‘She just turned into a train wreck,’’ Stephen said. ‘‘It put her on to a path that ended up in her death. I had no idea that my clever, beautiful, brilliant girl was a drug-seeker.’’
Freya started taking the painkiller in her last year of high school in Wellington, to deal with excruciating pain while waiting for surgery after fracturing her spine. She subsequently turned to the black market for supplies.
Stephen said she was shocked by the increase in opioid prescriptions.
‘‘By what I’ve seen, GPs have been taking a very measured approach, so to hear that opioids are being prescribed like this, it’s horrifying.’’
A US survey in 2014 reported almost two million Americans abused or were dependent on prescription opioids.
Sue Paton, executive director of Addiction Practitioners’ Association Aotearoa New Zealand said about 5300 people were currently receiving opioid substitution therapy.
Most had developed an addiction after taking prescription opioids, as illicit opioids, such as heroin, are relatively rare in New Zealand.
However, the treatment figure does not reflect the scale of the problem in New Zealand, Paton said.
‘‘International data says that in a country similar to New Zealand, about one per cent of the population will be addicted to opioids. Our data doesn’t reflect that so I think there’s been a gross underestimation of our addiction problem.’’
New Zealand risks experiencing an opioid epidemic similar to the United States if greater resources and focus isn’t given to the use of painkillers, she said.
Acclaimed Kiwi actress Rena Owen, who was addicted to heroin in her early 20s, warned prescribed opioids could be just as dangerous as other more notorious drugs.
‘‘The only difference between the heroin on the street and the heroin in the bottle is one is legal and the other is illegal, but it’s exactly the same drug,’’ the Once Were Warriors actor said from Los Angeles.
Owen said Big Pharma was omnipresent in the United States, and hoped New Zealand wasn’t heading down a similar path.
‘‘You get a lot of high-class, middle aged men and women addicted to pills. America is the biggest pharmaceutical country in the world. There’s a huge drug culture. Every second commercial is advertising a pill.’’
Waikato DHB pharmacy manager Jan Goddard said the increase in the number of scripts for opioids didn’t necessarily mean more painkillers were being consumed.
It could instead reflect the fact a lot of opioids are being dispensed on a weekly or monthly basis as opposed to a three-monthly basis, he said.
Health professionals were aware of the problem of opioid dependency in the US but New Zealand had tighter controls in place.
Audits are prompted by high prescription levels.