To be fair, there are articles all over the place on this topic right now; a Google news search will lead you to many domestic articles saying the same thing, but I was charmed by the phrasing here at the Taipei Times:
People in the US are living in a world of pain and they are popping pills at an alarming rate to cope with it.
Don't you feel sorry for those poor people in the US, living in their world of pain?
The news, such as it is, is that a recent analysis of figures by news organization AP revealed that painkiller use in the US nearly doubled between 1997 and 2005. According to the article, 90,720 kilograms of opiates were purchased in the US in 2005, which they say is 300 mg per person per year. Which is not a lot of dope if it were really distributed uniformly, but still that's a lot of dope! Makes those big DEA busts look like total child's play in comparison.
The article also concludes that 2 to 3 million doses of painkillers are stolen from pharmacies every year. I'm not sure I believe that; that's a hell of a lot of drugstore cowboy action!!!
