They're study drugs. Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse--you name it. The plague of prescription pills, with their often dangerous side effects, has been heavily reported by major media outlets but still continue to dominate finals week on college campuses across the country. And Senator Chuck Schumer wants to do something about it (in New York, at least).

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If you weren't already convinced that prescription painkiller abuse is a major crisis in this city, the Health Department today came out with a range of shocking new numbers to hammer the point home.

Between 2006 and 2011, citywide overdose deaths linked to prescription painkillers jumped by 65 percent, the agency says, with a jump of 261 percent in Staten Island alone. In 2011, 220 New Yorkers fatally overdosed on pills, including 40 people from Staten Island.

Along with the spike in overdoses, the number of painkiller prescriptions jumped by 31 percent, from 1.6 million to 2.2 million between 2008 and 2011. Most of the increase came from people aged 25 to 34, and over 250,000 New Yorkers or 4 percent of the entire city population reported misusing painkillers.

The full Health Department report is here.

Giuseppe Bognanni via Compfight cc

A troubling pattern is emerging around the NYPD's recent "big drug busts."

Last month, after years of surveillance, the NYPD concluded that gangs on the Lower East Side had sold "$1.2 million worth of coke in two years." On April 12, the NYPD arrested 41 people from the neighborhood, mostly from Baruch and Campos projects. Upon closer inspection however, the numbers don't add up to much: $1.2 million over two years means $600,000 annually in drug proceeds, which is not so impressive when you factor in the 41 arrests. That means that cops squandered at least two years of resources and manpower busting individuals making an average of $14,634 annually selling drugs. That's downright measly.

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Yet another doctor was busted today for illegally selling highly addictive painkillers out of his Queens home "office," which had little actual medical equipment.

Dr. Gracia Mayard, 61, is accused of distributing oxycodone between Jan. 1, 2012 and March 15, 2013. In exchange for cash, Mayard sold 2,953 prescriptions for nearly 400,000 pills to people without doing a medical exam during the first 10 months of 2012. He didn't even meet some of his customers before writing prescriptions.

According to an arrest affidavit, when narcotics agents went to his Cambria Heights home on Feb. 7, his son first told police that Mayard wasn't home. Then, later that day, a blue van arrived at the house and two men tried to slip Mayard out of the home by covering him with a tarp. He took them into his office to show them his "exam room," which was a table covered with dust and papers. "No other diagnostic items commonly present in a medical doctor's office were observed," the affidavit said.

In an attempt to justify his work, Mayard told investigators, "I know that it's a big problem but what happens to the oxycodone after I write the prescription is not my concern. It's just like a person that sells guns, he cannot control what happens after he sells a gun."

Mayard later dithered about where his medical records were. It turned out they were in three boxes in his car. He faces 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Kudos to Mayor Bloomberg, local prosecutors and medical folks for moving to sharply limit the amount of prescription painkillers doled out in emergency rooms in the city's 11 public hospitals. It's about time someone took on the over-prescribing of highly addictive drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone by the medical community, which may be a worse contributor to the pill epidemic than the rogue doctors we wrote about in November.

Under the initiative, emergency rooms will only be allowed to prescribe three days worth of pain pills, and won't re-fill lost, stolen or damaged prescriptions. In the past, hospital would prescribe a whole lot more pills as a matter of routine.

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Yet another doctor has pleaded guilty to illlegally distributing the powerful and addictive painkiller Oxycodone for cash, federal prosecutors say.

Long Island-based doctor Frank Telang copped pleas to illegal selling the drug and income tax evasion before a district judge at the federal courthouse in Central Islip. He faces up to 25 years in prison. Telang admitted to the judge that in 2011, he sold prescriptions for oxycodone to undercover officers. He met patients at night in parking lots near his Port Jefferson office to sell them prescriptions without performing any medical exams on them.

Prescription painkiller abuse has become a serious problem in the metro area, and as this week's Voice cover story reports, at least 30 doctors and other medical professionals have been arrested for illegal distribution and other crimes over the past three years. Several dozen others have lost their licenses or otherwise disciplined.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes announced the arrest of eight alleged drug dealers from Bedford Stuyvesant yesterday stemming from a long-term drugs-selling investigation.

"Once again, undercover police officers put their lives at risk to make these arrests possible and improve life for the law-abiding residents of Bed-Stuy," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a release.

Police arrested Naquan Brown, Herbert Curtis, Zajuan Glaster, Desmond Jones, Dijon Martin, Jaquan Pinckney, Tyquan Steele and Daquan Tyson. Police seized marijuana and other drugs at three different apartment buildings on Linden Boulevard, Madison Street and Monroe Street.

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This is what happens when everyone becomes a fan of Breaking Bad.More »

A Long Island physician has been charged in the deaths of two patients who overdosed on Oxycodone last year, federal prosecutors announced this morning.

Additionally, the doctor's former office assistant has been hit with charges alleging that he was involved in the unlawful distribution of the dangerous narcotic drug to several patients, many of whom didn't actually need it for anything other than feeding their addiction.

According to a 47-count indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors this morning, between January 2009 and November of 2011, Doctor William Conway wrote 5,554 prescriptions -- 782,032 pills -- for oxycodone to "patients" he knew were addicted to the drug. In many cases, he did so without requiring the "patients" to undergo a medical examination.

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The feds have indicted a Long Island doctor and his office assistant with killing two patients by over-prescribing the highly addictive painkiller Oxycodone, and conspiring to illegally distribute the drug.

William Conway, the 69-year-old doctor, of Flushing, and Robert Hachemeister, 67, of Baldwin, N.Y., were scheduled to be arraigned in federal court this afternoon.

In April, 2011, Giovanni Manzella fatally overdosed on oxy after Conway gave him prescriptions for 450 pills. In October, Christopher Basmas also fatally overdosed two days after Conway gave him a prescription for 180 pills. After Basmas died, Conway tried to cover up his involvement by altering office records.

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