Prescription Drug Addiction Blog

The ongoing saga surrounding the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith hit another milestone today as her boyfriend and psychiatrist were convicted of fraudulently obtaining prescription drugs for the late model. However, they were acquitted of other charges and her doctor was acquitted on all charges.

There were several problems associated with the case where the law apparently protected the defendants against common sense. The sheer number of prescriptions that were reported, combined with the types of drugs dispensed, clearly indicated there was a major dependency, whether it was "legitimate" or not. After hearing of these specific drugs following her accidental overdose death, it comes to no surprise to drug rehabilitation experts that they caused her death, though none of the defendants were charged in her death.

In addition, all three of the defendents were intimately connected to her in some way. They did have a hand in creating her prescription drug addiction, regardless of what the law states they are responsible for.

Here is yet another case of prescription drug companies defrauding American taxpayers. It's not just one of them, but many of the major players, and my safe estimate would be that nearly all of them are. In this situation, companies posted inflated prices for the state of Hawaii's Medicaid program, so the Attorney General filed suit against all those found. The result was that the state filed for more than $82 in settlements with the companies.

Prescription drug costs for people on Medicaid in Hawaii rose from $45 million in 1999 to $117 million in 2004, which was an increase of roughly 160 percent according to the article posted on LegalNewsline. The suit above was just for years 2006 to present.

In a related addiction recovery blog, an author and treatment professional was quoted describing the tremendous damage being caused to our Medicaid system by prescription drugs.