>>> Bobby started popping oxycotton in high school, and he soon became hooked, he was
taking up to 20 per day plus with the antianxiety drug zanaxÊ Xanex and Aderol, he had a few
standard lies that he would tell the doctors.
>>> That I had lower back pain or I did something to my knee running, pretty much the same story
every time, I would go to different doctors, I wouldn't go to the same ER.
I can pretty much use the same story.
>>> Most of the time they would give Stevens a prescription for at least a month's worth
of prescription.
>>> How much acting did it take on your part to get the medicine?
>> Not much to be honest, I would explain the pain that I had but they were so busy
it seemed like that they took you for your word and wrote the prescription so there wasn't
a lot ofÊ I didn't have to do x rays or MRI or any of that stuff, they just asked what
I was there for and wrote my a prescription.
>>> Sales of opiets have sky rocketed over the years and what's the major source?
Not your local doctor it's hospital emergency departments.
>>> I think they're all experiencing an incredible influx of opiet requests and reeled emergencies,
so we're just one of the emergency departments here in town that are seeing a huge increase.
>>> Alvarado hospital sits right off a trolley stop in La Mesa, that makes it convenient
for patients who need to see a doctor right away, doctor Kelly says it's hard to tell
when a patient is fake it go or when they are really in pain.
>>> Our goal is to help, and we want to say how can I help this person and second is to
do no harm and that's where the issues come up, because there is a lot of harm related
to this.
>>> The emergency department at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Hillcrest ask one of San Diego's
busiest, more than 57,000 patients treated here last year, Dr.ÊLove says lately she
has noticed an increase in patients asking for painkillers.
These days about 1 out of 5 in her E.D.
are taking Nashing narcotics.
>>> When you talk about heroin or cocaine, you think of drug lords in Columbia, bath
salts, the chemists in China but prescription drug abuses and deaths are given my well intentioned
physicians and we need to change the way we practice and get ahold of this epidemic.
>>> To that end Dr.ÊLove is changing the efforts to change the way they dispense painkillers.
Love has come up with a set of guidelines.
Under the new rules people who come to the E.D.
for chronic pain will be directed to visit their primary care doctor.
>>> Someone who has pain for more than three months or pain medications that last in the
body for a long time those are the people who need to get all their prescriptions coordinated
by one prescriber and pharmacy.
>>> Dr.ÊLove says these changes will not affect people with acute or sudden pain from,
say, a broken arm or kidney stone, they will be treated with the pain therapy.
The new guidelines will affect people complaining of chronic pain.
>>> That's the population at risk who die unintentionally, they take medications from
different prescribers, something from the E.R., something from a psychiatrist and something
from a primary care doctor and people die from that.
>>> Dr.ÊMichelle Lomantia runs a network of community clinics in the south bay, she
says there are non narcotic prescription drugs that are quite effective.
She thinks doctors who prescribe need to be more careful.
>>> I think sometimes we feel it's only a percent of people that might have a problem
with the drugs and we are going to be able to pick them up but that's not the case.
>>> All hospitals in San Diego and imperial county have tentatively agreed to the new
narcotic guidelines that could be rolled out this spring.
After eight years of abusing narcotics, Bobby has quit.
He's been in recover for four months, Stevens wishes those had been in place when he got
hooked on painkillers.
>>> I don't think I would be where I'm at today if they weren't so easily available
so ink it's great.
>>> In 2010 more than 16,000 died of an overdoze of prescription narcotics, Kenny Goldberg,
KPBS news.