Prescription drug abuse is on the rise across the nation and officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration say that people are overdosing on drugs that were not originally prescribed to them.

The DEA reports that there have been numerous arrests around the country in connection to prescription drug abuse and last year, six people died in Missoula County from a prescription drug overdose.

Officials tell us that the problem runs across several age groups, adding that some of the problems they see involve teens getting into their parent's medicine cabinets, taking the prescriptions drugs and then either selling them or sharing them with others.

They also say people are forging prescriptions and stealing prescription pads to get the drugs. Meanwhile, members of the Missoula Police Drug Task Force say that people need to make sure and keep prescriptions where unauthorized users can not get to them.

"Having prescription, narcotic, analgesics is like having a firearm" says Collin Rose with the Missoula Police HIDTA Drug Task Force. "They have to be under lock and key or under your control at all times because they have potential to be stolen, to be used for illegal means."

DEA officials say that there are patients out there with real problems, and then there are those who fake illness using old medical information. They're called "doctor shoppers"

"Go around to different clinics and try to fabricate their illness and potentially obtain narcotics or benzodiopeans or anxiety drugs, street level type abuse where doctors believe they're treating a problem that may not actually be what the patient is claiming" explains the DEA's Paul Jaster.

He adds that "the Hydrocodon and Vicodin is probably one of the most popular as far as street level abuse goes, and it's very addictive. Fetenill and Oxycodon and Oxycotton, those are a little more difficult to obtain, they have to have a hand written prescription for those."

Buying prescriptions online is another trend, and a felony.

"Some people are naive about the fact that they obtain these medicines from the Internet thinking it's a legitimate prescription which if it's for a controlled substance, it's considered obtaining medicine by fraud" explains Jaster.

The DEA adds that it could take extensive drug treatments for someone to get over prescription drug addictions.

If you want to report illegal prescription drug sales or abuse, you can call your local police department or the DEA in Billings.