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Chester County DA: Prescription Opioids Are Driving Addiction Crisis

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan, addressing news that two drug counselors died after overdosing at a half-way house, told Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that schools need to start teaching about the dangers of drugs sooner and that doctors need to reform their prescription processes.

"You have to start educating your kids early. Kids start getting addicted to drugs, on average, when they're at the age of 13. We need to get in to, not just our high schools, it's too late by then, but our middle schools, and start educating these kids, letting them know what the consequences could be. The other big part of this, and our doctors have already bought into this here in Chester County, is the regular doctors and dentists need to understand that their prescribing practices are at the root of this opioid and heroin epidemic. They need to, and they've done this in Pennsylvania, start putting in prescribing guidelines and start considering hard prescribing caps on what they will hand out because that, at the end of the day, is what is driving this opioid epidemic."

Hogan suspects that not all doctors are not concerned enough about the amount of opiates they prescribe and the potential impact of that decision.

"The safeguard there is as long as they are getting regularly treated by a good doctor, then it has a legitimate use for chronic pain. The thing we have to be careful about is that there are people, and the rules would have to be established to make sure that the people who are not the responsible doctors are being controlled."

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