According to a 2008 study, about six and a half million Americans abuse prescription drugs each month... and misuse of prescription drugs contributes widely to the approximately 24,000 unintentional, fatal drug poisonings that take place in the U.S. every year. Here in Indiana, fatal overdoses have increased more than 300% over the last ten years overall. Abuse levels of prescription drugs for Indiana youth continues to exceed the national average.

This week on Noon Edition, we sat down with Dennis Wichern, Assistant Special Agent at Indiana's Drug Enforcement Agency, along with representatives from the Indiana Prevention Resource Center and Centerstone, the addictions treatment center. We discussed the problem of prescription drug abuse and talked about what Indiana government and nonprofit agencies are doing to address it.

href="http://wfiu.org/noonedition" target="_blank">wfiu.org/noonedition. Noon Edition airs Fridays at 12:06.