Prescription drugs have overtaken illegal drugs in terms of American addicts. It seems unusual that prescription drugs would be such a problem. After all, they can be given out based only on a doctor’s recommendation, which should make them harder to come by compared to over-the-counter drugs. Demand, however, has freed them up.

Watch any prime-time TV show and you’ll see numerous ads for prescription drugs to treat countless maladies and even some conditions that are brand new. Melody Peterson, author of “Our Daily Meds,” recently attended a pharmaceutical conference where one of the topics was “Creating a disease.” It was called overactive bladder, which used to be called incontinence in elderly people. Now people of any age who think they go to the bathroom too often can get a drug called Detrol. The drug became a blockbuster seller for Pfizer.

According to Peterson, in an interview in In These Times, two-thirds of Americans take at least one prescription drug, and three times more children in the U.S. take anti-depressants and psychiatric drugs than children in Europe.

Therein lies the primary reason for the staggering increase in prescription drug abuse: Legal junkies are good for the bottom line. As Peterson points out, the U.S. is the only country that has no regulation on drug prices. The pharmaceutical companies set their own prices. When they’re sued, they pass on legal costs by raising prices. Criminal charges are almost never pursued.

The ads for prescription drugs always end with telling viewers to see their doctors. The pharmaceutical companies have already been there, as Peterson points out, to get the doctors ready to write the prescriptions.

Doctors can also prescribe drugs for anything, often after drug companies plant a bug in their ear. For example, Neurontin, also made by Pfizer, is for epilepsy but is also being prescribed for bipolar disorder. Neurontin soon became a billion-dollar drug with 90 percent of prescriptions written to treat conditions other than epilepsy.

Peterson notes that nine of 10 physicians had taken some sort of gift or cash from drug companies. Many more doctors, she said, are taking hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from drug companies to act as consultants or advisers.

What does this mean for the average person seeking to alleviate his craving for methadone or oxycodone? As was pointed out in a Herald Bulletin article last week, oftentimes the addiction just creeps up on people. They’re enjoying the pain-free existence they sought, but now they need more and more to get the initial rush. Some just keep getting prescriptions filled by doctors who have no obvious moral anchor. Others will steal, likely get caught and end up in jail. Still others will overdose and die.

As Peterson notes, the pills are meant to be swallowed and time released. If people chew them up, it shoots a massive dose into the system that can result in overdose.

With the enormous profits at stake, prescription drugs will continue to flood the market and rack up more addicts. Recently, 24 drug companies met with the Food and Drug Administration to set up a risk-management plan for prescription drug abuse. But this might be too little too late, or just a cosmetic move on the part of drug companies.

As Peterson notes, diseases such as malaria in third-world countries need immediate attention from drug companies, but they’d rather develop drugs for high cholesterol and overactive bladder for one reason: Americans pay more for drugs than a poor nation in Africa.