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Zoeller announces prescription drug abuse awareness effort

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller visited Fort Wayne to announce a new public awareness project aimed at fighting prescription drug abuse.

The project includes a new billboard on US 30 warning residents that every 25 minutes, someone dies from a prescription drug overdose in the United States.

The effort comes after the creation of the state-level Prescription Drug Abuse Task Force, which met for the first time in September.

The Task Force includes government and industry representatives, and is working to educate the public and come up with new ways to fight the abuse of prescription medications.

Allen County Health Commissioner, Dr. Deb McMahon, attended Tuesday’s announcement. She says stopping prescription drug abuse locally starts at home, but it’s a team effort.

“You don’t have big problems without a lot of people creating the problems,” McMahon said. “And so you have issues maybe some issues we need to do on the prescribing side, on the utilization side, we have some issues there, and then on the legal. You know, you have to have laws that support the good practice of health.”

Zoeller says the Task Force hopes to present suggestions for legislation to help stem prescription drug abuse by the start of the next session of the Indiana General Assembly.

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