Prescription drug abuse can endanger more than just the user

TAMPA, Fla. - In Florida, more people die from prescription drug overdoses than all other illegal narcotics combined. But those abusing the drugs aren't just putting themselves in danger.

"With the increase of the number of people we have in our clinic over the last four years, most of them drive so they're probably driving intoxicated yes," says Keith carpenter, a certified addiction counselor, with the Drug Abuse Comprehensive Coordinating Office.

Carpenter says when he started in 2006, he had a 175 clients. He now has close to 500. He blames the explosion of prescription drug addiction on pill mills making oxycodone and roxycodone readily available, and they're highly addictive.

"Every four hours you want another hit so it's like a roller coaster you're not high then your high and you do that all day long." Carpenter

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office says, 31-year-old Laura Osborne was likely on that roller coaster ride when she got behind the wheel last night. Investigators say she was travelling on Van Dyke Road by the Veterans Expressway when she crashed head on into another car.

She and her passenger were seriously injured. The passengers in the other car now have broken bones and bruises.

Osborne was charged with DUI with serious bodily injury and driving with a suspended license This wasn't her first arrest.

"We go through all the motions we arrest them we put them through the system. But yet when they get out and pay their fines etc you can't be watching them 24 hours a day," says Debbie Carter with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

Carter says it's quite possible that today more DUI offenders are high on prescription drugs than are drunk.

"People have a false sense of security, they think that maybe it's not as easily detectable," she says.

But experts say they create the same type of impairments to the senses, reactions and judgments, sometimes even worse

As for Laura Osborne, investigators say she admitted to injected oxycodone.

According the department of motor vehicles, she was already labeled a habitual traffic offender. Her license was suspended numerous times and was cancelled in January.

But that didn't stop her from getting behind the wheel.