The Louisville Courier-Journal (4/11, Ungar) reports, “More than 250 faces stare out from a wall of photos at the National Rx Drug Abuse Summit — men and women, many of them young, lost to drug overdoses.” On Tuesday, US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, said, “There are too many faces on that wall. There are too many faces that could be on that wall,” and added, “Prescription drug abuse is the nation’s fastest-growing drug problem.” The surgeon general “was one of the keynote speakers at the inaugural national three-day summit organized by the Eastern Kentucky anti-drug group Operation UNITE” that “drew about 700 people involved in battling the prescription-drug abuse epidemic.”
“At the National Prescription Drug Abuse Summit in Orlando Tuesday, Gov. Steve Beshear called for states and the federal government to develop aggressive shared tactics to thwart the devastating scourge of prescription drug abuse,” the Kentucky New Era (4/11) reports. “He also encouraged Kentucky legislators to keep the state on the leading edge of effective anti-drug strategies by passing a broad prescription drug bill,” known as House Bill 4, “on the final day of the legislative session this week.”
Related Links:
— “Prescription drug abuse summit draws 700,”Laura Ungar, The Courier-Journal, April 10, 2012.