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SUMMARY: At age 22, college football player Austin Box had suffered a slew of painful injuries. Two weeks after his graduation, he overdosed on a lethal cocktail of pain medications, none of which he had been prescribed. Health correspondent Betty Ann Bowser reports on the perils of painkillers and the difficulty of combating abuse.
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THOMAS FRIEDEN, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: When I was in medical school, the one thing I was told was completely wrong. The one I was told was, if you give opiates to a patient who's in pain, they will not get addicted. Completely wrong. Completely wrong. But a generation of doctors, a generation of us grew up being trained that these drugs aren't risky. In fact, they are risky.
BETTY ANN BOWSER (Newshour): Health officials also cite a cultural shift in the acceptance of taking prescription drugs in general.
TERRY CLINE, Oklahoma Commissioner of Health: In our society, where we expect a pill to make our lives easier to manage, sometimes, we take the easy way out.
ALSO:
"Prescription Drug Abuse: Top 10 Things CDC Says You Should Know" by Jason Kane, PBS Newshour 4/30/2013
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