You Can’t Ask That: June 22

This week on You Can’t Ask That, questions are posed on Prescription Drug Dependency & Addiction.

It is among Australia’s leading causes of death and it is likely to come in a packet, handed to you over the counter by your local pharmacist or doctor. In 2020, prescription medication killed almost twice as many people in Australia as car accidents and more than heroin and methamphetamine combined.

Like a number of our guests, Leah fell into an abyss of pharmaceutical drug addiction in the most innocuous of circumstances – after taking a tumble in the Mother’s Race at her son’s school. The solution to chronic pain was given to her by her doctor in the form of prescription opioids, kicking off a decade of dependency.

“You can be a perfectly normal woman with kids and still be addicted to these opioids. It’s not a moral weakness,” she says.

While much of the focus is on the addiction potential of opioid-based medications, the commonly prescribed benzodiazepine-based anti-anxiety medications, sold under such brand names as Valium and Xanax, are said to be. even harder to get off. Both are prescribed by doctors for a vastly subsidised cost via the pharmaceutical benefits scheme – while non-pharmaceutical solutions remain costly and under-prescribed.

“I understand a lot more about multi-disciplinary pain management – things like physio, massage, exercise – but bthe system is not built for that,” explains Leah. “That’s really expensive. I was buying a bottle of 48 Mersyndol for $5.95,” she says.

9:05pm Wednesday on ABC.