The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is considering moving the opiate painkiller hydrocodone from Schedule III to the more restrictive Schedule II in hopes of better controlling diversion and misuse of the drug, the Associated Press reported Aug. 4.

Hydrocodone-based drugs like Vicodin and Lortab have become the most popular opiate-based painkillers in the U.S.: 124 million prescriptions for the drugs were written in 2005, with prescriptions increasing as doctors scared off by the problems associated with oxycodone (OxyContin) switched to hydrocodone for their patients.

Some observers say the looser restrictions on the Schedule III drug -- especially regarding refills -- have made hydrocodone products ripe for abuse. Legal distribution of the drugs has risen 66 percent since 2001, but hydrocodone also has become the most common pharmaceutical submitted into evidence to forensic labs and the most likely to result in an emergency-room visit.

Hydrocodone distribution is highest in the South, including states like Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama. "When I started in this field, the primary client was involved with alcohol," said David Bailey of the West Virginia Prevention Resource Center. "I wish it were still alcohol. Not that that's not a very dangerous drug, but the addiction (to painkillers) seems to be much more intense, much more severe within a shorter period of time."

Experts note, however, that the hydrocodone problem is national, not regional. And they stress that, bad though it is, the problem of hydrocodone abuse is dwarfed by abuse of illicit opiates like heroin.