All tag results for 'vicodin'

More and more babies are being born addicted to painkillers!

Back in the '80s and '90s, there was an increase in babies being born addicted to crack.

Now it seems, prescription painkillers are the drug of choice.

Pregnant women are more frequently using or abusing painkillers like Vicodin or Oxycontin. The number of them has increased fivefold from 2000 to 2009.

That's terrible.

It's not that more pregnant women are using drugs, it's just that pregnant women who would already be using drugs are using painkillers more than anything else.

The babies can be treated with methadone for withdrawal symptoms (the same stuff recovering heroin addicts take) and during treatment all they do is cry and are miserable.

Poor babies.

Just because the drugs are legal doesn't mean they're any better for your baby!

Tags: addict, babies, baby, crack, drug, drugs, legal, oxycontin, pain, painkillers, pregnant, sad, symptoms, treatment, vicodin, women

How would you like to fire up your printer and print out some Tylenol instead of having to go to the store??

Well it could be a possibility within the next 20 years!

Here's what we're hearing about the new capabilities:

"We developed strategies to produce integrated 3D-printer/design-software/chemistry packages whereby individuals could one day have access to chemistry and chemical discovery without the need for expensive laboratory infrastructures."

The whole thing is based on these things called "reactionware," which are vessels that can contain chemical reactions.

Using a somewhat layer cake process, they're able to add other chemicals into the gel, allowing the reactionware to be part of the reaction process!

It SOUNDS cool, but do we really want people to have the ability to access drugs so easily??

We feel like this would be great for nursing homes, but in the average home, what would be stopping someone from cooking 500 vicodin on a whim??

We'll just have to wait and see!

[Image via AP Images.]

Tags: 3d, ability, chemicals, cook, cooking, drugs, expensive, people, vicodin

Seriously! This is NOT good!

Health agencies are warning the public about an alarming rise in the abuse of medicines containing the narcotic hydrocodene like Vicodin, Norco, and Lortab.

How alarming? Police seizures of hydrocodone pills rose from 13,659 in 2001 to 44,815 in 2010!

Even SCARIER is that 8% of the nation's 12th-graders have abused hydrocodone in the last year!

Talk to your kids about prescription drug abuse and keep any prescriptions LOCKED away.

There are few figures on the national death toll of the drug, but one study showed that hydrocodone caused 910 deaths in Florida ALONE between 2003 and 2007!

Tags: abuse, deaths, florida, health agencies, hydrocodene, medicines, pills, police, prescription, seizure, vicodin

With prescription drug abuse surpassing the number of people who overdosed during both the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and the black tar heroin epidemic of the 1970s combined, the White House is finally doing something about it.

On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden announced:

"We are making an unprecedented commitment to combat the growing problem of prescription drug abuse. The government, as well as parents, patients, health care providers, and manufacturers all play a role in preventing abuse. This plan will save lives, and it will substantially lessen the burden this epidemic takes on our families, communities, and workforce."

Let's hope!

Epidemic: Responding to America's Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis will be an effort supported by federal agencies like the FDA, DEA, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Defense and Veterans Affairs.

The campaign aims to to reduce abuse and drug diversion, educate both parents and health care providers, find better ways to dispose of unused pills, and beef up enforcement efforts by clamping down on pill mills and doctor shopping.

The major push against prescription addiction is specifically cracking down on opioids, a class of drugs used to treat chronic pain, which includes OxyContin, Vicodin, Darvon, Dilaudid and Demerol.

Although viewed as medicine, the prescription pain relievers are highly addictive, as DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart said:

"When abused, prescription drugs are just as dangerous and just as addictive as drugs like methamphetamine or heroin. The more we can do to stop the abuse of prescription drugs, the more effective we will be in reducing the death, destruction and despair that accompanies all drug abuse."

The sad reality is that almost any drug can be abused by those with addictive personalities, but we hope this new campaign will drastically reduce the number of people dying from accidental overdoses of prescription drugs.

[Image via AP Images.]

Tags: abuse, america, campaign, cnn, cocaine, crack, dea, effort, epidemic, fda, federal, oxycontin, vicodin

Ozzy Osbourne is notorious for his past drug use, and because of it he can offer sage advice to people going through the same struggles he went through.

In a recent Rolling Stone health column he gave readers advice about avoiding addiction to painkillers.

He wrote:

"I was popping 25 [Vicodin] a day at one point, and that's very dangerous… If it says 'Take one every six hours' on the bottle, that's what you've got to do. With me, I'd end up taking six every hour, then — if (wife) Sharon caught me — I'd blame it on my dyslexia. If you think you need the meds and you don't trust yourself, give the bottle to a relative or friend, so it's not within easy reach."

Ozzy is great. Keep spreading the good word, bb!!

[Image via C.Smith/WENN.com.]

Tags: addiction, drugs, vicodin

This is shocking.

People may forget - especially because of how lovely, well-spoken, and put-together she is now - that Kelly Osbourne struggled with a serious addiction to painkillers, but on her upcoming episode of Piers Morgan's Life Stories, she reveals just how severe it was!

She explains:

"At the start I only took one every weekend. Then it was one every weekday, then two a day, then three. By the end I was taking so many pills I was on my hands and knees vomiting blood because the drug was ripping away my stomach lining. I was taking 50 a day, more than twice the lethal dosage, and every day I took one more, hoping I wouldn't wake up. If I hadn't gone into rehab then, I'm sure I wouldn't be here now. I feel very lucky because people die every day from taking painkillers like Vicodin, and I was taking much more than them."

Unbelievable! And so terrifying!

Thank goodness she reached out for help and got treatment when she did! There's no way her body could have withstood that kind of dosage for much longer.

Addiction to prescription drugs is a serious problem that can spiral out of control very quickly, so we're so grateful that Kelly was able to recover and achieve what she has today!

We're so proud of her for being brave enough to speak so openly about something that must still be very difficult to look back on!

You've come a long way, bb! Congratulations!

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: brave, drug addiction, frightening, inspiration, open, piers morgan, piers morgans life stories, pills, prescription medication, rehab, scary, treatment, vicodin