Though prescription drugs are touted as the solution to almost all modern diseases, they are more harmful than beneficial. With all the abuse that arises from them, and the doctors who keep feeding to citizens, it has become a bigger drug problem than even most illegal drugs.

Part of the problem is that medical professionals today often receive incentives to push certain medications, especially if they are new, to people who do not really need them. Doctors are trying more and more to treat the problems they come across with prescription drugs.

The media today has advertisements of prescription drugs all over the place. They even have drugs for helping you get over drugs. With ads like “Hey do you want to stop smoking? Well take Smokertal and watch your habit disappear!”, they make people think that there is something wrong with them requiring medication. Often times these issues can be treated with alternative methods, and the side effects of the medications can be worse than the original symptoms.

Direct to consumer prescription drug ads encourage doctors to push medications and it also encourages people to take more and more prescription drugs. Ever since the late 1990’s prescription drug abuse has been on the rise and is a bigger problem for the U.S. than one might have thought.

Prescription drug abuse is when a person takes medication for reasons, ways or amounts not intended by the doctor. It usually is taken by a person who was not prescribed that certain medication, they can get it from friends, family or a street dealer. 52 million people over the age of 12 have used prescription drugs for non medical reasons in their life time. That is almost a sixth of the population.

Overdose is a big concern when it comes to prescription drug abuse. In 2013 deaths from opioid prescription drugs exceeded those from all illegal drugs. Every day 114 people in the U.S. die from prescription drug abuse. Among people ages 25-64, more people have died from overdoses than car crashes.

This is a serious problem for our society and is the cause of more harm than help. More people should consider alternative treatments before making a final decision on using prescription drugs.