Retail prescription drug sales topped $300 billion in 2010 alone, and criminals are doing everything they can to get a piece of the market. This CNBC program takes a hard look at illegal enterprises that are spreading pain and suffering, not to mention addiction, across America. Viewers learn how drug dealers, bribed medical professionals, and online rogue pharmacies are helping put powerful prescription medicines like Oxycodone and Vicodin into the wrong hands, with tragic consequences. Nearly 7 million Americans ages 12 and up are abusing prescription drugs each month, according to DEA figures from 2009, while the National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that misused prescriptions are now the leading cause of fatal overdoses nationwide.
General Note
Title from container.
Originally broadcast on CNBC as an episode of Crime Inc. in 2011.
Content Note
America's Secret Epidemic -- Pills are Taken for Granted -- Over 900 Pain Clinics in Florida -- Watching Pill Mills -- Police Storm 11 Pain Clinics -- Not Like Other Street Drugs -- Oxycodone Sparks Relentless Addiction -- Keeping Drugs and Dealers Off the Streets -- CI Makes Deal for Oxycodone -- Drugs Beget Violence -- Online Drugs, an Epidemic -- Online Pharmaceuticals and International Shipping -- Screening International Drug Shipments -- 1 in 7 Teenagers Experiment and Abuse Pharmaceutical Drugs -- Recovering from Addiction -- Credits: Deadly Prescriptions: Crime Inc. : The Underground Economy.