Pill parties are the fad now among youth, prosecutors say.

ALBANY — Dougherty County’s top drug crime prosecutor said last week that abuse of prescription drugs is expected to exceed the methamphetamine epidemic.

Painkillers like Oxycontin, Oxycodone and Methadone are rapidly becoming the most abused drugs in the area, Assistant District Attorney Brumby Montgerard told members of the Albany Rotary Club.

"When used as doctors prescribe, the drugs are perfectly safe," Montgerard said. "But when they are overused, or mixed with other pills or drugs, they can be deadly."

Montgerard said in Dougherty County prescription drug abuse doesn’t limit itself to any particular social or economic sphere.

"We see housewives who have injured their hips who become addicted and an 18 year-old girl with Crohn’s Disease who was taking 90 Oxycodone pills every two days, so its not limited to any one group," she said.

Prosecutors say that the fastest growing group of abusers of prescription pills are nurses, doctors and other staff in doctors’ offices who have easy access to prescription pads.

"These people know the terminology used to write prescriptions and some will just take a prescription for like allergy medicine and alter it as they need it," she said.

Montgerard said that deaths from prescription pill abuse are climbing. In 2004, the most recent data available, 90 people died in Georgia from Methadone abuse, almost double the number who died in 2001.

Young people are becoming more involved in pill or "pharm" parties where participants steal their parents or grandparents prescriptions, put them in a bowl at the party and take pills by the handfuls.

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