Are Americans Over-Medicating?

The percentage of Americans who took at least one prescription drug increased from 44% in 1999 to 48% in 2008.  

Over the same time frame  :

Use of two or more drugs grew from 25% to 31%

Use of FIVE or more drugs grew fm    6% to 11%

I went to the infirmary on a cruise ship some years ago for a minor thing, and got into the doctor’s office for probably 45 minutes.  He was British and took this job just to travel a bit. The passengers were primarily Americans, and he said he was shocked to see how over-medicated they were.  He said they bring in large zip loc bags with their prescriptions in them, and many were not in need of all (or even any) of them.  Many, he said, were conflicting with other meds they took.  He said that, in GB, he wouldn’t have prescribed a fraction of what he saw being used, and many were drugs that carried more dangers than benefits he said.

That led me to conclude that advertising or something is driving the drug use by Americans.  Of course a cruise could be skewed to older folks, but this one didn’t look like a particularly old crowd.