Americans consume 80 percent of the world's supply of painkillers -- more than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year -- as the country's prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes.

Americans consume 80 percent of the world's supply of painkillers -- more than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year -- as the country's prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes.

That's enough drugs to give every single American 64 Percocets or Vicodin. And pain pill prescriptions continue to surge, up 600 percent in ten year, thanks to doctors who are more and more willing to hand out drugs to patients who are suffering. 

As more people get their hands on these potentially-dangerous drugs, more are taking them to get high. Their drug abuse leads to 14,800 deaths a year -- more than from heroin and cocaine combined.

'We've become a society of wusses,' Long Island, New York, pharmacist Howard Levine told the BBC. 

Mr Levine stopped carrying all of the major addictive prescription drugs after he was robbed twice by addicts looking to get high.

 

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Nationwide, police are reporting increases in robberies and other crimes by people who are addicted to oxycodone and hydrocodone, the key ingredient in most prescription pain pills. 

One of the people lured into crime by drug dependency was Rich Elassar, 36, who once owned a successful business in New Jersey. more: