Suspicions about Michael Jackson’s prescription drug use and sudden death are also putting a new focus on a serious and growing problem, and that is the misuse of prescription drugs in this country. It is now actually the second leading cause of accidental death. This is prescription drug overdoses after auto accidents.

Aired July 3rd, 2009 at 7:10am EST

Andrew Wainwright kicked his addiction more than a decade ago and created an organization to help others do the same. And he joins me this morning.

Andrew, thanks for being with us.

ANDREW WAINWRIGHT, PRESIDENT & CEO, ASSISTANCE IN RECOVERY, INC.: Thanks, good morning.

CHETRY: So you’ve been clean for 12 years now. You know firsthand how hard it can be to battle an addiction to drugs. Tell us your story.

WAINWRIGHT: I was a — I grew up on the east coast in Washington, D.C. and struggled with drugs and alcohol through college. I got sober when I was 26 and sober for 12 years.

And you know, white collar background. Wasn’t expecting to grow up and be a drug and alcohol addict. But these are the kinds of things that happened. I think they were genetically predisposed, and that’s exactly what happened to me. And I think that the rise of prescription drug abuse is beating right into that.

I think that people believe that an addict looks a certain way, and that’s not exactly true at all. I think that lots of folks are — addiction is accessible to lots more folks. I believe it can happen.

CHETRY: Right. And the danger that we’re learning about with prescription drugs is I mean when used as they’re supposed to be, they can be safe and they’re fine. But because they’re prescribed by a doctor, oftentimes people don’t believe it’s a problem.

And this was an interesting stat here that approximately 50 million Americans reported or at admitted to non-medical use of a prescription drug at some point in their lifetime. How big of a problem is it when you’re taking medicine that you’re not necessarily prescribed to treat something that you have?

WAINWRIGHT: I think it’s a tremendous problem and growing. I think that the perception is there’s less stigma, less shame, as it were, taking prescription drugs for off-label uses. Somehow that’s OK. And I think that decidedly (ph) it’s OK because it was given to me by a doctor. Things from doctors are supposed to be good. It’s supposed to make things better, not worse.

And I think there’s a lot of surprise when folks get sick or strung out or addicted from these same meds that are supposed to make them better. And I think that more and more — I think we sort of co- signed it a little bit as a society that since it comes from a doctor that it should be OK. And so, since friends or family tell me that this is why have a prescription for this it should be all right and we think that it is OK. And then we’re surprised when it turns out that folks get very, very ill.

CHETRY: Right. And you know deaths caused by overdosing on prescription painkillers, drugs like oxycodone or methadone, fentanyl, they jumped more than 90 percent just between the years of 1999 to 2002. This is according to stats cited by “The Washington Post.” Why are we seeing this jump?

WAINWRIGHT: Well, a couple of reasons. I think the big reason we’re going to put our finger on it is in 1996, when OxyContin first hit the market, we saw drug companies actively marketing their drugs, both the doctors and the consumers. And I think that big marketing push or big advertising campaign nationally told people to buy these drugs, to ask their doctors for them and gave doctor’s permission to prescribe them in larger numbers to more people for more different types of syndromes. Therefore, the use escalated.

CHETRY: And the question is, you talk about how it’s easy to get your hands on it. Doctor shopping in some cases, the ease at which you can get one of these prescriptions for painkillers or anxiety conditions. And when you truly have pain and you truly have anxiety, it’s understandable that you would want to be able to take something for that.

But why does it seem that it’s easier to get your hands on medications like this when you don’t necessarily have a condition that warrants it?

WAINWRIGHT: Well, one of the things we can point to is this. It’s that with the rising managed care at the end of the ’80s, at the end of the ’90s, we step away from everyone having a primary doctor who had a long history with an individual, also have understood what they’ve been through, where they’re going, and how to treat them.

As we became sort of individually taking orders (INAUDIBLE) for the medical records, moving through the ’90s and to the 2000s, we’re seeing more rise of people going to more different doctors for more different things and the doctors with less time and less capability to follow up and to know where those patients are coming from and what they’re being treated for. Doctor shopping, the ease with which people are able to visit multiple doctors for the same ostensible real condition…

CHETRY: Right.

WAINWRIGHT: … and get medicines from all of those different doctors.

CHETRY: Do you think that a national registry could make possibly make a difference where you have to report all the stuff and every doctor would have access to it? Is that something that is in the works any time soon?

WAINWRIGHT: Well, the Bush administration talked about it. The Obama administration certainly talked about it. And it’s something we’d love to see. The unfortunate piece is it’s many years down the road to get everybody onboard so in effect you’re walking around with a piece of paper or a chip, electronic record to tell you exactly who you are, what type of blood type you have, all of the things that you need and all the things that you’re taking.

So in terms of short term, it’s not something we’re going to see anytime soon. So I think we need to look at more immediate short-term solutions to the problem that’s in front of us.

CHETRY: All right. Well, it’s certainly is a growing problem. And so we need to try to find those answers.

Andrew Wainwright, president and CEO of Assistance in Recovery. You also wrote the book “It’s Not Okay to Be a Cannibal” joining us from Minneapolis, MN this morning. Thanks so much.

WAINWRIGHT: Thank you.

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Trascript taken from CNN.com