Generation Rx

Have I ever told y’all I was a statistics junkie? Well if you didn’t know, now ya do and since you know my secrets I figured I would get on my soap box for a bit so hang in there! :)

Did you know that the United States represents 4.2% of the world’s population?

--The US consumes 80% of the world’s opioids &

99% of the world’s Lortab (hydrocodone/APAP).

75% of heroin addicts say they started on pain pills.

Most addicts start their addictions on pain pills. Pills can become too expensive and hard to locate, so most switch to heroin since it binds to the same receptors on the brain, is cheaper, and readily available.

3 out of 5 teens have more of a chance of becoming addicted to prescription medications when compared to adults.

You may think that you have control of an addiction, but you DON’T! There are 2 different kinds of addictions, and they can develop quicker than you think.

I am sure some of y’all are wondering where the heck I am going with this one. If you are just joining my blog [WELCOME], and FYI I am in pharmacy school so the rest of this should make sense now. So as you can imagine drug abuse is a H-O-T, hot topic! So what’s next, what do you do as a future health care professional to help spread awareness, well let me tell you!

The UNM APhA chapter has adopted a program called, the

Generation Rx Initiative

The Ohio State University in partnership with Cardinal Health developed this program. Now that I have this out of the way let me tell y’all the goods.

When most people think about drug abuse, prescription medications do not usually come to mind. Did you know that prescription medications can be just as dangerous, if not more deadly than street drugs? Did you know that the number one cause of accidental deaths in New Mexico is prescription drug overdose? An epidemic is among us friends, and CHANGE needs to start now!

GenRx is developed to target all age levels from Pre-K to Senior Citizens. In the past month and a half I have given 20 presentations to various age groups all over the state of New Mexico. Why am I mentioning this you might ask? If you are interested in anything I have mentioned I encourage you to shoot me an email or add a comment. I would love to have the chance to talk to any of y’all about this information or potentially set up a presentation for y’all to check out. Let me know what ya think :)