Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan
In 2011, the Office of National Drug Control Policy published a PDF containing a prevention plan regarding prescription drug abuse, which can be found here. The national prevention plan outlines five subjects to be used to prevent prescription drug abuse: (I) education, (II) tracking and monitoring, (III) proper mediation disposal, (IV) enforcement, and (V) prescription drug abuse plan goals.
The White House believes that educating students, parents, and patients about what prescription drug abuse is and how harmful it can be will help prevent its existence in society along with monitoring programs known as (PDMPs) in every state. The monitoring programs are put forth to reduce what some call "doctor shopping," which is going from doctor to doctor to get prescriptions multiple times when the medicine is not actually needed for the person's health--it actually harms his or her health. Medication disposal is key to prevent prescription drug abuse, because if you dispose of the medicine itself after it is no longer needed, the medicine will not be sitting around for you or anyone else to take, abuse, and become addicted to as many Americans have. Enforcement is needed to prevent the existence of "pill mills." People should only receive the medicine that they NEED, not the medicine that they WANT. Individual prescriptions are needed for each dosage of specific medicine because of this. |