Need to address

AN Australian drug addiction expert says GPs and drug companies are responsible for a deadly escalation in prescription drug abuse that has reached epidemic proportions in Tasmania.

University of Sydney psychopharmacologist Ian McGregor was in Hobart recently to present the keynote address at a biennial symposium attended by caseworkers, policy-makers and experts in the drug, alcohol and mental illness sectors.

Professor McGregor said more and more people were dying as a result of over-prescribed legal medication.

Prof McGregor’s comments came after the release this month of the national Drug Trends Survey 2012 that revealed Tasmania led the

DAWTREY country in opiate and prescription medication abuse.

Oxycontin, morphine, methadone, Xanax and Tramadol were ‘‘very easy’’ for drug addicts to obtain in this state, according to the survey respondents.

Prof McGregor said prescription rates for some of the most powerful painkillers and psychotropic medications – sedatives, antidepressants and anti-psychotics – were frightening.

‘‘Prescription opiates are of real concern, particularly Oxycontin, and there’s high capacity for people to get addicted to them,’’ he said.

‘‘Then there’s Tramadol and Fenton, which are extremely potent and associated with an increasing number of deaths in Australia.

‘‘There’s a disassociation between what doctors should be doing and what doctors are doing.

‘‘The fact is they’re giving out prescription opiates far too straightforwardly.’’

Prof McGregor said a decade ago doctors prescribed opiate