Nearly 3.8 million prescriptions for pain medications given by military doctors

They come home addicted to prescribed drugs the military doctors give them to keep them going and then we dare wonder why they end up in so much trouble back here? They get a drug to calm them down and then wind them up, another to fall asleep and then another to wake them up. They are give pain medications with most of them leading to addiction to them. It is not longer just bullets and bombs they have to worry about but the threat of their own military getting them hooked on drugs.

MILITARY: Abuse of pain meds by vets skyrockets

By RICK ROGERS - For The North County Times

Post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury remain the most common combat maladies arising from service in Afghanistan and Iraq. But abuse of prescribed drugs, particularly pain medications, is on the rise, and its effects are being felt in San Diego County.

Phil Landis, chief executive officer of Veterans Village of San Diego, has witnessed a six-fold increase in young, homeless veterans in the last two years, and many of them are struggling with addiction to prescription medications.

"Almost 10 percent of our vets here are post-9/11. By the time they get to us, they have fallen through about every other support net," Land is said. "The younger veterans we're seeing have really fallen hard and they've fallen fast. Many of them are addicted to prescribed drugs. We don't see that much among our other veterans here.

Landis said the connection between drug abuse and homelessness is well known from the experience of Vietnam vets. But what is critically different now is the speed with which today's veterans are plunging into homelessness. A downward cycle that used to take eight to 10 years to land a veteran on the streets is now down, in some cases, to less than a year.

Finding a cause for the surge in over-the-counter drug abuse might be as easy as reviewing government records.

Military doctors wrote service members nearly 3.8 million prescriptions for pain medications in 2009, up from 866,773 such prescriptions in 2001, according to data from the Defense Department.

Pentagon records also show that abuse of prescription drugs by the military is more than twice that seen in the civilian population ---- 5 percent compared to 11 percent, according to a 2008 military survey measured against a 2007 civilian survey.

The drugs most abused were painkillers, such as Vicodin and OxyContin, although alcohol abuse continues to be a concern.

A military survey released a year ago found that, out of nearly 30,000 troops, 1 in 4 admitted abusing prescription drugs, most of them pain relievers, in a one-year period.
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Abuse of pain meds by vets skyrockets