Diprivan Abuse Increasing

Diprivan, the strong anesthetic that may have contributed to the death of Michael Jackson, is a growing concern for Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials. Even before the pop star’s death, the DEA was considering making Diprivan a controlled substance. Currently, diprivan is not a controlled substance and so is not tracked the way that other narcotics are. The drug is extremely powerful, with a high risk of death even on the first try. Recent media attention on diprivan is driving medical professionals to get the word out about how dangerous the drug can be.

Diprivan, also known as Propofol, is referred to by some doctors as “milk of amnesia.” It is generally administered through an IV, and it is designed to produce deep sleep or even a coma-like state. It is widely used in health facilities as an intravenous sedative medication both for procedures (such as in surgeries or colonoscopies) and for non-procedural sedation. It has been around since the 1980s.

Diprivan is so powerful it can cause unconsciousness within 30 seconds. Although diprivan abuse is relatively rare, it is a growing problem. In 2008, the FDA reported 43 diprivan-related deaths. In the previous decade, diprivan-related deaths averaged 22 per year.

Administering the drug safely requires sophisticated equipment to monitor breathing and heart rate, and so it is almost always given inside a medical facility. However, some people do manage to obtain the drug for illicit uses. Wealthy individuals and medical professionals are the most likely to have access to the drug for illicit uses. Days after Michael Jackson’s death, Propofol was found inside his rented mansion. The singer reportedly requested the drug to treat insomnia.

Thane Flora, interviewed for a story by CBS News, discussed how she developed an addiction to diprivan in the 1990s while working as a nurse and anesthetist. She initially started using the drug to relieve insomnia related to her addiction to painkillers. She also related a huge downside to diprivan use – a dose only lasts a few minutes, so addicts end up injecting themselves again and again. Ms Flora explains, “It’s real simple. … You use it to go to sleep. Wake up a few minutes later and use it again.”

Dr. Omar Manejwala, an American Psychiatric Association Fellow, also interviewed for the CBS story, agreed with Ms. Flora’s description, saying, “The patients we’ve seen who used Diprivan will often self inject 50, 70 times per day.”

Why would anyone want to inject themselves with a drug that wears off so quickly? Experts say that users report awakening with a strong sense of euphoria, which helps to create the addictive behavior. Ms. Flora simply says, “What makes sense to an active addict makes no sense to someone that’s not an active addict.”

Experts report that almost all diprivan addicts are medical professionals, usually anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists or operating room technicians. Research shows that one in five academic anesthesiology training programs reported at least one case of abuse by physicians or other healthcare workers over the past decade.

Medical professionals have easy access to the drug and can take advantage of the fact that it’s not a controlled substance. The fact that these individuals are medical professionals doesn’t protect them from adverse consequences of use. According to research by Dr. Paul Wischmeyer, approximately 28 percent of the medical professionals who have tried diprivan even once have died. Wischmeyer comments, “It is very easy to make a mistake and they do it until they are not breathing and then they are dead.” Other sources report fatality rates among regular users at about 40 percent.