The state of Tennessee has a serious drug problem when it comes to abusing prescription pain killers. This is not only a drug problem in the state but a growing health concern across the Nation. According to a report from the Center for Disease Control & Prevention, located in Atlanta, showed that Tennessee lead the nation with the most prescriptions for pain killer drugs than any other state. As well as Alabama. In Tennessee, the average pills to people is 143 to 100. Common pain killers are; Vicodin (hydrocodone and acetaminophen), Oxycontin (oxycodone), opana (oxymorphone), and methadone. Health Care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for pain killers in 2012.Thats enough for almost every American over the age of 21 to have 1 full bottle of pain killers. 1 Full bottle is all a person needs to overdose on Pain killers. With the heavy movement of prescriptions being written for these common pain killers has increased the number of overdoses across the United States. Over 46 overdoses are reported daily across the U.S. due to the excessive use of pain killers. According to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, 221,000 Tennessee Citizens over the age of 21 have used pain killers for non-medicinal purposes over the past year. 69,000 of these people are addicted and require treatment to recover. There needs to be more control on these addicting drugs. Databases need to be monitored more properly and proper examining of doctor’s repetition on pain killers prescriptions. Unused pain killers should be discarded properly by dissolving them, flushing them, or even distribute them to drug recycling companies. As of August hydrocodone combination pills were rescheduled from Schedule III to Schedule II due to the over prescribing across the nation and the amount of overdoses as well. Hopefully this has a positive affect on this topic.