Prescribed opiates are contributing to a lot of overdose deaths, said Vancouver Prof. Benedikt Fischer. (CBC)

A growing number of Canadians are becoming addicted to prescription painkillers such as Tylenol 3 and OxyContin, say researchers who fear the problem could lead to more deaths.

In many Canadian cities, more people are addicted to prescription opiates than street drugs such as heroin or cocaine, according to study published in the April issue of the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

In 2005, the majority of street drug users in main Canadian cities were non-medical users of prescription opioids, with the exception of Vancouver and Montreal, researchers found.

The study's authors estimated that there are between 321,000 and 914,000 people in Canada who are abusing prescription opioids — between one per cent and three per cent of the country's population.

At Regina's detox centre, 80 per cent of the 200 clients a month get their drugs using prescriptions.

"I think our doctors are sometimes naive about the drug use," said Hansa Ram, a nurse who has been working at the detox centre for six years.

"Many times I phoned up the GPs and told them about it, [saying] 'Look, be careful, just don't prescribe this medication, because he's an addict. They don't even know they are an addict."

Overdose deaths

The growing problem is killing people through drug overdoses, said Prof. Benedikt Fischer of Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Health Sciences in Vancouver and a co-author of the study.

"It is a rather new and surprising phenomenon that it's actually prescribed substances, medical substances that are contributing to a lot of these deaths," Fischer said.

An estimated 30 to 40 per cent of the 1,000 to 2,000 drug overdose deaths in Canada each year may be related to prescription opioids, said Fischer, who recently received a multimillion-dollar grant to study the problem.

If the estimate is correct, it adds up to between 300 and 800 deaths every year.

Dwayne Nepinak still vividly remembers his painful withdrawal from five years of addiction to morphine pills.

"It felt like you had bugs under your skin," Nepinak said, whose experience with doctors supports Ram's. "There was certain doctors that are known as scoring doctors, is what they call them, like where you can score pills."

Prevention strategies

Part of the problem is doctors may prescribe painkillers to people with minor pain from headaches to toothaches, Fischer said.

To prevent prescription drug abuse in Canada, the study's authors suggested:

• Expanding prescription drug monitoring programs.
• Reducing improper prescribing practices.
• Educating physicians, pharmacists and the public.
• Eliminating internet drug pharmacies.
• Providing warning labels on all controlled substance prescriptions.
• Developing non-opioid treatments for chronic pain.

Fischer hopes his research will create more awareness and motivate politicians and bureaucrats to take the problem seriously.