Okla. among worst for prescription pain pill abuse

Those regions are Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and their surrounding areas.

The Oklahoma Prescription Monitoring Program says data shows that supplies of prescription pain medication in Oklahoma more than doubled over a four-year period ending in 2006. The volume of prescription pain medicine is enough in one year to give every state resident about 60 painkillers.

Nearly 2.5 tons — the equivalent of about 200 million, 10 milligram pills — were shipped to the state in 2006. A report released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration shows most of those drugs went to pharmacies.

Controlled pain pill use and abuse has been escalating in Oklahoma since 2004, said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Doctors are prescribing pain medications more often and more patients are asking for them, he said.

"There's really nothing showing the use is going down," Woodward told The Oklahoman newspaper.