I'm Mike ree chief of police for the Portland Police Bureau we've seen a troubling Trend in Portland and throughout the state regarding prescription medicine abuse prescription drug abuse rates have increased dramatically in Oregon over the last 10 years this trend has caused an increase in our fatal overdoses young people like you are especially vulnerable to this trend perhaps in part because of the Mis perception many kids have that these drugs are safer than other more illicit drugs the availability of these types of drugs has also increased as doctors prescribe more medication studies show that the majority of young people using prescription medication get them from family members within their own home or from friends our officers respond to the tragic fatal overdoses that claim lives and destroy families with increasing frequency it is our hope that educating young people to the dangers of this drug abuse Trend can help improve this situation and save lives have you or someone you know recently had surgery a doctor probably prescribed a painkiller after the procedure often times the leftover medication is still in the bathroom drawer or medicine cabinet right what's the problem with that who cares about an old prescription anyways hey can you tell me where the bathroom is yeah it's just around the corner all right thanks non-medical use of prescription drugs is the fastest growing drug problem in the United States and has been classified as a national epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control while some drugs such as cocaine have shown reduced usage rates of the last several years nearly onethird of people aged 12 and old older who abused drugs for the first time in 2009 began by using prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes local law enforcement and healthc care providers are very familiar with the dangers of prescription drug abuse they see the effects of their misuse on a frequent basis and want to make sure others are aware of the danger hey James yeah you showed me something on your arm uh that you have from drug use you use heroin right yeah that's an absess and that's an absis is that from shooting into your ear right there right okay according to the Drug Enforcement Administration one in 1s admit to abusing prescription drugs to get high in the past year in general the teen surveyed also reported that they believe prescription drugs are much safer than street drugs and not addictive 56% of teens surveyed reported prescription drugs were easier to obtain than illegal street drugs such such as marijuana cocaine or ecstasy and perhaps most alarming 63% of teens surveyed reported prescription drugs are easily obtained from friends or family's medicine cabinets the vast majority of teens and young adults who abuse prescription medication obtain their drugs from a family member or friend many of the common prescription drugs we see are teens abusing such as adderal Xanax ambient Rin Viking in Oxycontin and peret are coming from our very own medicine cabinets so what is driving this epidemic and how is it affecting our teens meet Dr Zayn Horowitz medical director of the Oregon poison Center in the last few years the number of prescription drug deaths which used to be a reasonably low number has exceeded traffic accident deaths in the United States part of it is we're doing better at Traffic Safety we wear seat belts and have airbags and Trauma systems are doing better and reducing those deaths but at the same time the number of people who are using prescriptions um to get high to misuse them are increasing to the point where they're the leading cause of accidental death in the United States prescription drug abuse can begin as early as Junior High people are trading their ADHD meds their stimulant people are trading their their sleeping meds that they're on for different reason their ambiens and their aliums people are using their their vicadin and their noros and their oxycodones and their oxycontins um or their parents's pills that they've got for a variety of reasons or even psychiatric medicines of which they have no idea how many or any of these work and mixing them in combinations sometimes with alcohol at a party where someone gets a few beers and they down a few pills and they trade and swap these for each other and then suddenly someone passes out prescription opiates or painkillers are a category of drugs that can have especially deadly consequences when we used to think of opioids and opiates in the past we were always thinking heroin overdoses but in the last maybe 15 years we've seen a trend towards people using prescription Pharmaceuticals whether they're their own or they're borrowed from a friend or a relative or traded with a schoolmate and they're using them and they figure well a doctor wrote for it it must be safe but that's not true what's implied for somebody with a broken leg as pain control is not going to be safe for somebody who doesn't have a medical problem and we''re seeing unfortunately more and more overdose deaths um from things like oxycodone and hydrocodone and methadone all these high potency narcotics that are opiates that are painkillers that are written as prescription um that people are misusing um in an effort to you know get high legally tragically this plays out with devastating consequences in our own Community treatment admissions for prescription drug abuse in Oregon has increased 84% over the last 5 years and a survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control reports that the prescription drug abuse rate in Oregon is the second highest in the nation Dominic melli was a local teenager whose death is one of the growing number of tragic stories that reflects the deadly effects of prescription drug abuse Dominic's mother tells his story with the hope that it might impact teens and parents alike my son Dominic uh passed away September 22nd 2011 from an overdose of heroin and Fentanyl Dominic was a hardworking young man who most people wouldn't think would have a drug problem a lot of people think when they think of drug users that they're partyers that they're out of control that that's all they do Dominic uh was a very very hard worker a great student um he was either at work or school or at home but Dominic did develop a drug problem and it started with prescription drugs as far as I know the prescription drugs he was using was was vicadin that's what he started out with uh just taking the pills and then when he didn't have enough pills to get the same feeling or he didn't have access to enough of them to get the feeling he wanted he told me that he would uh grind them up and that's when he started doing the um needles Dominic's prescription drug abuse eventually led to heroin addiction the heroin was a lot cheaper he said than uh the pills he had told me that before that's uh I didn't know that he uh relapsed and I think he went to the heroin I believe my son's cause of death was his addiction his initial addiction to uh prescription drugs that he found in our home I think that's what killed them when you gamble with your life and lose the devastation is far-reaching and permanent I get up early so does my husband for work and we were just doing our thing my husband got ready for work um I was just about ready and Dominic wasn't up yet one of us normally would wake him up in the morning if he wasn't up and my husband went downstairs where his bedroom was and he wasn't in his bed bedroom he had his dogs in there with ready to go to he always took him to bed the dog so the dogs were in his bedroom and uh he was in the bathroom the bathroom door was uh locked and well it wasn't locked the we couldn't get in the bathroom and so my husband hollered upstairs to me Maggie come downstairs Dominic's uh doing something you know he's not answering me or he's messing with he's my husband was upset um so I said okay and go downstairs by the time I got down there my husband said this isn't good he was trying to open the bathroom door but he Dominic had opened a drawer that the door was pushing against we could just open it a crack and so uh Jim pushed the door through and we both popped our heads in uh the first thing I saw was Dominic's uh feet and his calves he was uh laying on the summit floor in this basement bathroom and my husband made some sound and he says oh no and I now I get my head all the way in and I see see him curled on the bathroom floor and I see some blood or something on the floor by his mouth and I wanted to get him and we need to call 911 but my husband um is a fireman and he knew the second he saw him that he was gone long gone on and pushed me out and said he's he's dead Maggie he's dead and then I don't remember too much after that it was when they say pain brings you to your knees um pain does it literally brought me to my knees um I remember crawling and making animal sounds um screaming I remember hearing my husband screaming I don't remember I knew I needed to uh get to our other son he was upstairs and I crawled up the stairs um I still have scars on my knees um from that and it was just a whirlwind of gutal sounds coming out of our home screaming um I just animal it was like three animals wailing at the top of our lungs and I remember clinging to my youngest son who I he's 15 15 at the time Jack and just holding him and never have heard sounds like that coming out of him um knowing that his brother was gone and after that I don't remember too much I do remember I never cried tears it was just Beyond tears it there's no words to describe it none I know I have heard my whole life there's nothing worse than losing a child and you kind of go yeah I can imagine you you can never imagine and it is true no none of our Lives will be the same ever Dominic's story highlights an especially deadly connection between opiate-based prescription painkillers and the more hardcore street level drug heroin prescription opiates are very similar in molecular structure to heroin abusing opiate painkillers however does not have the same stigma attached to it as heroin use and teens who abuse prescription opiates would never typically see them eles transitioning to a drug like heroin all too often however law enforcement and healthc care providers are seeing an undeniable progression from prescription opiate abuse to heroin use sha maycumber is an officer with the Portland Police bureau's drugs and vice division he has many years of experience investigating drug crimes and drug trafficking he has also been involved in multiple fatal drug overdose investigations and is all too familiar with why people transition from prescription opiates to heroin kids that that start off using prescription narcotics you know they don't have that mindset that they're using something illicit uh initially uh you know the these are medicines that are prescribed by doctors so uh people think initially you know this is safe this is if I just take a couple um I'm not going to be Haring myself but when that physical dependence kicks in with uh opiates or opiate style prescriptions uh it it leads later uh to the transition to heroin uh you know people don't tell you when you start uh you know relying on the pills that if you stop taking them that you're going to suffer from withdrawal symptoms such as you know extended bouts of diarrhea you're going to be you people call it getting dopesick for a reason because you're physically unable to get out of bed you're sick and you're trying to get off of of the drug and so there's several ways where uh people um try and either uh Stave off the withdrawal symptoms by getting more pills or if they can't get more pills then they'll turn back to you know what else is going to help me get over these symptoms that I'm feeling or or uh what's going to get me high again because you can build up a a uh maintenance level to where you're not feeling the high effects of the pills anymore and in order to get high again you have to use more or you have to switch to a new substance that has greater potency I.E heroin uh so by uh getting to the point in your life where uh you either run out of your pill Supply or you're not getting high anymore you know the the next step is uh going to you know heroin officer maycumber explains that prescription opiate addicts very often end up transitioning to heroin because of heroin's Cheaper cost and increased potency so Viking in on the street is a very lowlevel uh pill um it won't get you high it may saave off your uh uh with all symptoms uh whereas uh oxycoton which can cost approximately a dollar a milligram uh compared to you know the effects that you can get from a tenth of a gram of heroin uh for $10 off the street uh versus $80 uh of a pill for oxycotton um it's a it's a much cheaper way to either maintain your addiction or to once again try and uh achieve achieve those um impairments that you were getting when you were first using narcotics uh one of my friends um brought it over and said it was opium and said see if we going to try it and I did and it was a great high is the highest I've ever been and but I've never been able to get back to that point again and I just been trying to chase that first hive ever since and it's taken everything away from me what's happened with the friends since then what's your friend situation like uh well the ones that went on to a better life uh I don't talk to anymore and the ones that are addicts I still see occasionally okay is it hard to keep friends in this uh in this kind of lifestyle is it hard to have friends you don't have friends in this kind of lifestyle and why is that cuz everyone's stabbing each other on the back officer maycumber shares what he has learned in dealing with countless heroin addicts who started their addiction with prescription pain pels when you go talk to a user of heroin on the street they first of all I haven't talked to a single one that has told me that uh they enjoy it anymore or that they glad that they first started using uh heroin um also you know the kids that were going out uh and investigating the overd deaths of these aren't suicides they're not uh using the substance to try and and kill themselves they've gotten addicted to these substances physically and they need to keep using in order not to get sick the users that transition over to heroin never think of themselves as a heroin addict you go and you talk to them yeah I started using pills back you know a few of my friends were doing it and I got hooked on them and I was getting sick and somebody brought me hair one day and I made the switch it it's not something that people think about when they first start using that this is leading down a road to uh a physical requirement that I'm going to need this drug in the future and that I'm going to do things that I never thought I would do uh either physically injecting myself with a a substance or smoking something off a piece of ten foil you know it's just oh I'm taking this pill it's going to make me feel good for a little while but what it can lead to is that that final dose of injecting yourself with a needle you know initiating my response to come to your death a 2011 molom County Health Department needle exchange survey seems to lend statistical support to officer makers's professional Viewpoint in the survey 43% of the respondents who were currently using heroin indicated they began their addiction with prescription painkillers such as vicoden and oxy conton Colin Wright was a local professional wakeboarder and snowboarder who was paid for his appearances at various sporting and promotional events after a back injury Colin began taking vicadin as prescribed by his doctor his story shows in disturbing detail how easy it is for a person to go from all to nothing fortunately for Colin he survived his addiction and continues to work hard to maintain his sobriety Colin agreed to tell his story hoping to educate others especially looking back um my high school years and you know even under my early 20s I never thought that I would have any kind of drug addiction um I never thought cuz a lot of friends I grew up with and went through high school with we ended up being the people that used these drugs together and I wouldn't have thought they were going to become that person either um we all you know in high school I I didn't do great in high school um I you know admittedly didn't take it that serious at the time I was really adamant that I was you know going to be a professional athlete and you know just thought that things would work their way out I didn't didn't want to go to college at the time um I would party like drink and smoke a little bit of pot on the weekends you know but it was kind of your average kid that that used U substances a little bit you know and most of my friends were that way um but yeah no idea what was you know going to be in the future for me before Colin's drug use started he was a rising star in the professional wakeboard and snowboarding community it started pretty early I think like around 15 years old uh I was I became sponsored at snowboarding and you know by the time I was out of high school I was a professional um and so yeah I was you know competing on the weekends uh traveling all over the state up into Washington and California um so it was really something I was looking to pursue as a career as well Colin's introduction to prescription pain pills began after a back injury an event led to a heroin addiction and so when I got prescribed vikin in at 17 I didn't think anything of it except that it was helping with the pain um by the time I had surgery at 18 years old on my back uh the pain went away from the surgery like everything worked out but I didn't realize that there was now this um sort of depend in my body to uh have those pills and how they would make me feel and so after the surgery um they stopped prescribing me vikin in and perco set and for the most part I didn't feel like I needed it you know I think I was young enough and kind of naive to what they did that I just sort of assumed the uh healing process from the surgery was more of what was going on in my body but looking back I'm able to realize that there was withdrawals from these pills too that I was kind of going through um and so by the time I was like 19 20 uh my back was healed up and I kind of had this sort of in the back of my mind this feeling that how the pills these painkillers made me feel um not only were they killing the pain when I had been hurt but they kind of gave me like a you know sort of a euphoric feeling heing um and so it's something I was familiar with and sort of what happened over the next 5 six years was you know from time to time uh a friend might have an injury and have some of these pills or um I kind of started partying more like drinking and smoking pot and being out with people and you know sometimes at parties and stuff people would have you know Viking in or perco set and these painkillers and so we would take them recreationally just for the the feeling you would get from it um and that kind of it wasn't it took a while before I started using them heavily again um it kind of was just more of a recreational thing I thought it was fairly harmless I thought you know it's just fun something to do here and there when they pop up and so that went on for about seven years at this point in his life Colin's body was physically dependent on prescription painkillers describes this physical feeling so something that's really common among uh pill addicts and heroin addicts is a term called getting sick you know and and when I didn't have my drugs I was sick and probably the easiest way to describe it or give someone the feeling of what it is um the worst flu or cold or food poisoning you've ever had in your life doesn't have any kind of comparison to getting sick from the withdrawal of a pill or heroin addiction when you uh start using these pills it doesn't take long I mean it can be two or three weeks and you are completely physically in need of it and when you run out of the drug within 12 to 24 hours you are throwing up uh yeah vomiting diarrhea physically your whole body hurts um your nose will be running you're coughing you literally get so sick that you can't move you can't like get to the bathroom you can't drive um there's been times where uh a friend like two of us might be together that we're using at the same time and we both ran out of the drugs we were both so sick even though we had the money to get more that we couldn't get to the drug dealers house to get more drugs because we were so sick we couldn't move and even get in the car and drive it even though we knew we'd feel better when we got there you're so sick that you can't even move and it's uh one of the ways I describe it and a lot of people I know describe it is that I wouldn't wish the sickness that you feel from the withdrawal of opiates on anyone I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy because it is such a miserable and painful place to be and it doesn't go on for it's not a 24-hour flu it can go on for um at least a week if not two weeks um of being in excruciating pain addicts at this point in their dependency will do anything to support their habit both things I did to support my habit um are really hard you know to to look back and realize that you did them but initially because I had had a career and built up some things I just started selling off everything I owned you know and each day you wake up and you tell yourself in your head that oh this will be the last day I have to sell something I own or care about to to stay high and to keep this addiction going but then you get high that day and you don't do anything to stop the addiction so the next day you wake up and the next thing you thought to yourself you'd never sell or you'd never put a price on is out the door too and so because I had had had a pretty good career and had a lot of possessions it took a little while but over the period of a year or two you know slowly but surely everything got sold you know I mean I was down to my last kind of Ratty skateboard my last snowboard I mean everything that you hold dear to you you'll sell in a heartbeat when you need to and so then once everything was gone couldn't hold a normal job either because you know I had to stay high so then I had to start stealing uh to support my habit as well and you know just various you know it's when you're high you kind of tell yourself are you know small or minimal crimes but they actually hold a lot of consequence to them so I started just you know getting involved in a lot of criminal activities you know initially it was mainly stealing um from like Department Stores um you know stealing items and then trying to resell them uh then the other thing that that I got into kind of probably towards the end of my addiction which is really scary when I look back on it because I've talked to to people in law enforcement and in the legal system in general that have told me now what the consequences would have been had I gotten caught or something happened but I started selling drugs you know the heroin and stuff to support my habit and because I knew the people that used it it didn't seem like I was doing that much harm at the time because I was using it as well so I viewed it as I'm I'm not really a drug dealer I'm just helping my friends get the drug they need as bad as I need it and so I started selling uh heroin you know to support my habit which had I been caught doing that I mean would have gone to jail or prison for a long time but also if I had sold that drug to someone that had overdosed from it you know then the consequences go up significantly so I mean I was you know risking other people's lives but also throwing my life away too reflecting back Colin story highlights the dangers of prescription painkillers but also shows how easy it is for people to cross self-imposed boundaries just from my experience and from being a young kid back when I was in high school and Junior High like I just remember thinking that I'd set boundaries for myself and I was never going to cross certain lines um with drug use and alcohol and it's so easy just to have one night of thinking you're doing something harmless and all of a sudden you've crossed the line and then that next line that you set for yourself is going to be that much easier to cross as well um for me it went from I'm going to drink alcohol in the weekend to oh I guess I'll smoke a little bit of weed to oh I've taken these pills for a pain injury it can't be you know they prescribe them it's it's a legal thing if you have a prescription it won't hurt if I take this vikin in tonight you know to all of a sudden needing these pills every day and then having to not just take a pill but snort a pill to smoking heroin shooting heroin and stealing um it's just it's not worth it and despite what someone may tell you or convince you it's going to be harmless you know really think about how much you value your life and value the things you have in your life because it can all be gone in what will feel like the blink of an eye it may be a few years but that time will go by really fast and you don't get that time back and that's you know at the best outcome is that you'll get clean and find treatment the worst outcome is you pass away and you know that's it that's the end of your story so what can we do to keep someone we care about safe from prescription drug abuse most importantly store prescription medication in a safe secure place we tell our kids from the time they're really small to not play with matches or lighters and as parents you you keep those away from the kids because you know if they find one they're probably going to try it out try out the lighter you know it's a tool it's not a toy we told the kids whole life so we put the tools away you know hide the matches hide the lighters well the prescription drugs are the exact same thing if you have a legal prescription be aware of how much medication you possess and monitor a quantity to ensure that all medication is accounted for also ensure that any unused prescription medication is properly disposed of once it is no longer needed be aware of physical indicators that might indicate prescription drug abuse these indicators include sudden behavioral changes like unexplained anger outbursts lack of focus becoming withdrawn or engaging in Risky or criminal Behavior changes in in sleep pattern or lack of concern for personal hygiene unexplained weight changes and changes in energy level or lack of interest in activities or hobbies that once provided motivation can also be Clues also people who demonstrate a lack of caring for the natural consequences of their actions including damaging valued close relationships might also be showing indications of prescription drug abuse as a final message penny whips whose son Kyle struggled with prescription drug use and eventually died of a heroin overdose shares her story hoping it will inspire others who know someone who is abusing prescription drugs or engaging in similar dangerous choices to break their Code of Silence and get their friend or loved one help 911 hello where are you right now I am standing in the basement with a kid that has a purple face that I do not believe has a pulse or how old is this kid this kid is probably 22 and he's unconscious and not breathing I don't believe that he is breathing at this point Kyle was found in a home in southeast Portland and um he was staying with a friend's house at a friend's house who was renting a room from someone Kyle overdosed while using drugs with a group of friends while Penny acknowledges her son's responsibility in his own un intentional overdose she is also aware of just how strongly young people are influenced by their friends I think um as I'm looking at as I look back and see Kyle had several two groups of friends he had a group that he hung out with and once in a while they I would do what I would call dangerous living making choices that weren't um healthy or beneficial to him and then he had another group of friends that they did similar things music and hiking and talking about the future but but um drugs or alcohol was not evolved and when I say alcohol I mean excessive alcohol was not involved with that group of kids or students and it was with the kids that he occasionally lived dangerous with was the night where he died where he was surrounded by those kids and I think sometimes friendship is such an important thing it's it's uh very strong especially in high school junior high in high school and uh there were several conversations that I had with Kyle about this particular friend and said you may have to walk away from from him and he flat out mom I won't walk away from him he's my friend and I'm I'm going to be there for him and um I just in some way sometimes friends can be your Achilles heel you know it's it's something that if you're not willing to walk away from it if it's unhealthy it can have a life-altering you know effect on your family and you Kyle's death left a permanent void in Penny's life she works to ensure others don't experience a similar Pain by promoting a message that encourages young people to step out of their comfort zone and seek help for a friend or loved one who is engaged in dangerous living know if you're somebody out there who's Living Dangerously and you're being influenced more by your friends than you're influencing them for good maybe it's time to consider a change and then if there's somebody out there who's not living dangerous they don't have any intention of ever doing something dangerous um but they know somebody who is and they're keeping their secret it's time for them to break the coat of Silence in order to get their friends [Music] help Trials Come life gets hard when a human heart gets torn apart do you show the world that your faith is strong or do you let yourself be weak and when it hurts so bad that you can't think straight and when the loness will make you break do you hang get up just to watch it fall cuz your heart's so heavy the wall won't hold don't get lost in a see faces searching for their way home cuz I'm still here in the same place that I've been waiting all along come back to me come back to me no matter where you've been I'm still here come back to me come back to me no matter where you've been I'm still here so come back to me come back to me no matter where you've been I'm still [Music] here come back to me come back to me no matter where You' been I'm still here [Music] [Music]