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AG Terms Prescription Drug Abuse "Epidemic"

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oxycontin.jpg

Before heading to Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital for a tour of its Poison Center and a press conference, DeWine appeared on 90.3's the Sound of Ideas, where he called the problem of prescription drug abuse an epidemic.

Mike DeWine:
"When you see 7% of the babies born in a hospital in southern Ohio who are addicted to drugs, when you lose 1300 -1400 people in this state every single year of drug overdose, you know there's a problem."

In 2009, drug task forces in Ohio seized or diverted more than 135-thousand dosages of pharmaceutical drugs.

The abuse and illegal sales of Oxycontin and other pain killers is particularly popular in southern Ohio, where Governor Kasich last month increased funding for a new intervention center.

DeWine says the state's death rate from unintentional drug overdoses has more than tripled in the last ten years, now annually outpacing the number of car crash deaths, but that efforts to slow the problem are now gaining traction across Ohio.

DeWine:
"We're putting together, really the resources of the state government.... tax department, workman's' compensation, BCI, the Highway Patrol, local sheriffs; to go after some of these rogue doctors who are doing frankly, nothing but killing people out there."

The Ohio Prescription Drug Abuse Task Force is less than a year old.

Additionally, Senator Sherrod Brown, who defeated DeWine in the 2006 election, recently co-sponsored legislation calling for hiking sentences and giving law enforcement additional tools to fight sophisticated prescription drug theft rings.

Rick Jackson, 90.3.

Rick Jackson is a senior host and producer at Ideastream Public Media. He hosts the "Sound of Ideas" on WKSU and "NewsDepth" on WVIZ.