Popping Pills: A Prescription Drug Abuse Epidemic [Infographic]

The misuse of prescription drugs in America is on the rise. For a country with just 5% of the world’s population, we consume our share of medications and then some – three-quarters of the world’s prescription drugs! And in 2010, enough prescription painkillers were prescribed to medicate every single American adult every 4 hours for an entire month.

Most abused prescription drugs fall within three categories: painkillers, tranquilizers, and stimulants. In the past month, 6.2 million people have used prescription drugs non-medically. From this infographic, you can learn a little bit more about the people who abuse prescription medications: where they live (non-medical usage rates are highest in the West), where they got their drugs (mostly from friends and relatives), and the reasons teens cite for abusing Rx drugs (the #1 reason? They’re easy to find).

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