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Snyder joins drug abuse task force

2 min read

Nearly three-quarters of people who abuse prescription drugs are getting them from friends and family, according to a recent national survey on drug use and health.

State Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, hopes to change that as one of four members on a state task force created to combat prescription drug abuse in Pennsylvania.

“Just because a doctor prescribes it doesn’t make a drug any less dangerous or addictive,” Snyder said in a news release. “It is staggering that an estimated 70 percent of drug abusers are getting their drugs from family and (from) friends who take old prescriptions being stored in family medicine cabinets.”

Snyder has served on the Southwest Regional Medical Center Citizens Advisory Board and voted for legislation that would create a prescription drug database.

The government task force will work closely with an advisory panel made up of health, addiction, law enforcement and pharmacology experts.

Snyder said the task force will address the ways that legal opioids – frequently prescribed as painkillers – are intertwined with illegal heroin abuse. Roughly two-thirds of overdoses now involve prescription drugs.

“We cannot simply crack down on rogue prescriptions and ‘doctor shopping’ for painkillers without considering that such moves might push people into the waiting arms of heroin dealers,” Snyder said. “If there is a ‘simple’ solution lurking out there, it’s probably wrong.”

The Joint State Government Commission’s task force will have two months to recommend changes to the process by which “highly addictive opioid drugs” are prescribed, Snyder said. Within a year, the task force will provide a full report on proposed legislative and regulatory changes.

State representatives Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon County; Joe Hackett, R-Delaware County; and Marty Flynn, D-Lackawanna County, also will serve on the task force.

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