Gabapentin is an anti-seizure and nerve pain medication, doctors prescribe it as a safe alternative to opioids. But addicts have figured out — in high doses or mixed with other drugs — it can mimic an opioid euphoria.
You’ve probably never heard of it it’s called gabapentin doctors are prescribing it in record numbers but it’s been flying under the drug abuse radar for years until now it’s the morning hours walking through weymouth webb park when doug crowley says life is most still i enjoy myself i look around it’s just a calmness but that calmness is drug induced it’s
Not the medication he takes to help him withdraw from heroin he’s abusing another drug gabapentin chasing that heroin high it just gives you a sense of just togetherness and wholeness and like you have a core gabapentin is an anti-seizure and nerve pain medication doctors have been prescribing it as a safe alternative to opioids but addicts have figured out in
High doses or mixed with other drugs it can mimic an opioid euphoria one pill isn’t gonna do it you need to take six seven eight in a day so good is that feeling crowley will use most of the day getting into boston to score on the street gabapentin pills or capsules are called johnnies they’re a dollar a piece for 800 milligrams which is the biggest they come
Methadone mile is like an open-air drug market and everyone we talked to said they were taking johnnies they’re far cheaper than other drugs and because they’re not an opioid addicts say prescriptions are easy to get and easy to sell i’ve never felt in danger taking johnny’s i’ve never felt like i was hurting myself and i don’t think anybody on the street does
Either but abuse of the drug is killing more people than ever before the state medical examiner’s office ruled gabapentin a downer as the cause of death in 52 overdoses last year more than triple two years earlier you become more lethargic sleepy your breathing starts become more shallow at some point in time if you took enough you stopped breathing altogether
Dr dan muse says gabapentin abuse caught the medical community off guard over the last decade drug companies aggressively marketed its off-label uses everything from alcohol withdrawal to anxiety making it the country’s 10th most commonly prescribed medication we have to be vigilant about it in a statement a pfizer spokesman said while they monitor its safety
Reports of misuse and abuse with this class of medicines are limited and typically involve patients with a prior history of substance abuse desperate times call for desperate measures we’re in desperate times those desperate times have had mews and a team from the norfolk county da’s office pushing to put gabapentin on the state’s prescription monitoring program
In hopes of curbing abuse here i have well i took three so i have seven left as the state gets the word out to doctors crowley says johnnies are getting a bit harder to get but he won’t stop taking them he says they give him just enough high to stay off heroin and that’s worth any risk there’s a part of you that knows you could die every day and there’s a part
Of you that accepts it if it wasn’t gabapentin it would have been something else gabapentin goes on the pnp this week meaning doctors and pharmacists must track prescriptions and customers will need to show id we asked the state for a list of the doctors who prescribed the drug the most they told us they track it but by state law don’t have to share it ali downley nbc 10 boston
Transcribed from video
Addicts Using This 'Safe' Medication To Get High By NBC10 Boston
