Adderall could become the next opioid epidemic, DEA warns

Officials are sounding the alarm about the skyrocketing number of Adderall prescriptions, warning that misuse of the drug could lead to the next opioid-like epidemic.

A head of the Drug Enforcement Administration compared the influx of new prescriptions and the high risk of abuse to that of opioids in the early to mid-2000s.

The drugs have been linked to insomnia, anxiety, seizures, hallucinations and psychosis – and there is some evidence they may increase the risk of heart disease.

Matthew Strait, deputy assistant administrator in the diversion control division at the DEA, said, “I’m not trying to be a doomsayer here… It makes me feel like we’re on the precipice of our next drug crisis in the United States.” ‘

Prescriptions exploded during the pandemic with the rise of telehealth companies – with prescriptions rising from 35.5 million in 2019 to 45 million last year.

The DEA is working on new safeguards against overprescribing the controlled substance, which will affect how much of the drug is manufactured and how many people have access to it.

The opioid epidemic in the US has killed approximately 600,000 people, and the effects are still being felt despite stricter regulations. Many experts believe the fentanyl crisis was fueled by patients addicted to opioids who were cut off their prescription medications.

Deaths from Adderall use alone are uncommon, and it is typically accompanied by other deadly substances such as heroin, which can lead to an overdose.

But the drug, a stimulant similar to methamphetamine and cocaine, is highly addictive and people sometimes turn to street versions, which may contain even more harmful substances.

During the pandemic, as millions of Americans were stuck in isolation in an effort to prevent infection, telehealth companies like Cerebral flourished, offering people a lifeline when they otherwise couldn’t see their regular doctors.

But Cerebral, which requires users to be 18, and others have come under close scrutiny for what researchers consider overly liberal diagnoses of ADHD.

Overdiagnosis is a problem because it leads to overtreatment.

Arrival Health, a health technology company based in Denver, Colorado, estimates that ADHD medications now account for 2.3 percent of all prescriptions written in the US.

This is more than double the number in January 2020 – just before the pandemic started – when the drug made up just one percent of scripts.

David Goodman, a psychiatrist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told Bloomberg: “The crisis, if you like, is not in prescribing the drugs.

‘The crisis lies in the accuracy of the diagnosis.’

An estimated 6.1 million children and adolescents have been diagnosed with ADHD in the US, compared to around 3.3 million in the EU.

Overprescribing has had disastrous consequences. For example, 21-year-old Elijah Hanson was found dead on June 25 by his family on the kitchen floor in Tacoma, Washington, after filming himself playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun.

He had abused Adderall in the months leading up to his death, having managed to obtain a prescription online by lying to telehealth providers — even though he had previously suffered from other mental health issues.

There are currently no standards for diagnosing adults with ADHD, although specialists have been working to establish them for about two years. Wall Street Journal.

ADHD affects adults but is often diagnosed in children, who are also prone to overdose and overdiagnosis.

According to NIH research, an estimated one in four American teens abuses prescription stimulants such as Adderall in some schools.

Meanwhile, the CDC reported that the percentage of children with a parent-reported ADHD diagnosis has steadily increased over time.

The agency found that 14.5 percent of American boys have a developmental problem related to poor concentration – an increase from just under ten percent in 2000.

One in seven boys in the US now has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. For boys and girls aged five to seventeen years together, the prevalence was 11.3 percent, or about one in ten.

An important 2021 report found that ADHD diagnoses have increased worldwide since the 1980s, but there was no corresponding increase in ADHD symptoms during that time.

Dr. Luise Kazda, a researcher at the University of Sydney who was involved in the study, said: “Children are now, on average in the population, as symptomatic as they were 20 to 30 years ago,” she said.

“So there hasn’t been this huge increase in all these kids now being hyperactive or inattentive; that has really remained very stable.’

The article concluded that there was ‘compelling evidence’ of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of ADHD in children and adolescents.

Overprescribing has kicked the opioid epidemic into high gear. The messages distributed by the pharmaceutical company revealed that pain is another important sign that should be addressed by doctors and always treated to the best of their ability. That included prescribing painkillers.

In the mid-2000s, opioids flooded cities large and small. In Cabell County, West Virginia, once called the “epicenter” of the epidemic. Drug wholesalers AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson shipped about 81 million highly addictive opioid pills to pharmacies in the county’s Huntington area.

Overprescribing gave way to an explosion of heroin use on the streets, followed by much cheaper fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that has permeated the drug supply and crept into other drugs like heroin and Xanax, dramatically increasing the chance that someone will overdose and die .

The amount of fentanyl that could be fatal fits on the tip of a pencil and is about 100 times more powerful than morphine.