how many athletes suffer from addiction to pain pills ?

What I was curious about was how many athletes suffer from addiction to pills  and how many die per year because of it. Being an athlete I can closely relate with this issue. When Marcus Amos came to speak with us in class about this it really sparked my interest and I realized I had never really given it much thought or researched it.

 Studies from 2003 show that 15 million Americans have reported themselves using a prescription drug for non -medical reasons at least once during a year. This study also showed that those people who said that were between the age of 18-25. From that it was determined that painkillers are the most commonly misused drug.

So when you take that and compare it to college athletes what are the percentages, was my question? Well that question was quickly answered when I found a study that showed that 75% of college athletes use these drugs for sports related injuries. This can be an issue because not only are these medicines highly addictive for these athletes who need them a lot but they also are easily attainable for athletes. They can get them at almost a snap of their fingers from trainers and I have witnessed that myself being an athlete. This is a huge issue that is occurring among our athletes right now and a monitoring system needs to be locked in at all universities for the safety and health of each athlete.

 Gilliland A.H.

Sources: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/695222184/Painkillers-the-dark-side-of-sports.html?pg=all