Portland area health providers, officials attack prescription painkillers

Multnomah County is cracking down on prescription painkillers. County health officials announced Tuesday that a large coalition of health care professionals in the four-county metro area have come up with guidelines to curtail prescriptions for drugs like Vicodin, Percocet and OxyContin amid an epidemic of abuse, addiction and death. The county released a report showing a drop in heroin-related deaths since 2011 but little change in the number of deaths from prescription painkillers. In 2014, for the first time, those two numbers were the same, with 56 people suffering a fatal overdose of heroin and as many dying from prescription pain meds.