PHOENIX - When actor Heath Ledger died in his sleep, it proved to be a rude awakening about what many are now calling a silent killer.

Prescription drug abuse has reached statistical highs but is it leading to societal lows. The death of a young movie star forced people to take a closer look.

It was a 911 call heard around the world, a movie star found unconscious in his apartment.

Ledger seemed like a golden boy, good looking, talented and famous.

So why did his life end?

“Oh my heart just breaks, there's this perception out there that prescription drugs are safer than street drugs,” Kim Obert said.

Prescription drugs proved to be a silent killer for Ledger as six different medications found in his apartment, including sleep aids and anti anxiety medication. While no one pill was taken in excess, the combination proved deadly. 

He reportedly went to sleep and never woke up.

The medical examiner said Ledger's death was an accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription pills. 

“Drug addicts today don't look like drug addicts, they look like your kids, my kids, the next door neighbors’ kids,” Obert said. “That's what they look like.”

Scottsdale mom Kim Obert watched as Ledger's story sadly unfolded. It was a story eerily similar to her own.

“My son went to sleep on Sunday evening and just never woke up,” she said.

Her son, Kent was an All-American kid who played in the band and loved going to church, but he did not live to be 19.

“People think oh did he commit suicide, was it intentional, look he was a drug addict,” Obert said.

Her son, Kent died after taking the pain killer oxycontin, which has become one of the most popularly abused substances of the 21st century. 

Now experts say it is joined by sleep aids and anti anxiety medication as prescription pills of choice.  

What worries pharmacist Teresa Stickler the most is that more and more people are mixing their own medication and upping their own dosages.

“Pain meds, sleep meds, anti anxiety meds, all of them combined can cause respiratory depression that can stop your lungs from functioning,” Stickler said.

“A part of me died when my son died,” Obert said.

Obert has never spoken publicly about her son's death.

“I've waited patiently for what I was supposed to do with the pain,” she said.

Pharmacist Stickler said many patients need to be protected from themselves. 

“Is this an epidemic?” she said. “I would say so, yes something needs to be done."

Here in Arizona, something is being done

The death of her 18-year-old son was preventable.

“I know no one was more startled than my son when he woke up in heaven and he realized what happened,” Obert said. “I know that there was no one more startled than he was.”

Her son, Kent went to sleep and never woke up and Obert would later learn the painful truth that her son had taken a big dose of the popular pain killer oxycontin, one of the most abused prescription pills on the market.  

“Right now a lot of parents’ attitude is phew, my kid is just using prescription drugs, not snorting cocaine or using heroine,” Shelly Mowrey said.

Mowrey, from the Partnership for a Drug Free America, said the abuse of prescription pills has sky rocketed in recent years, especially the abuse of anti anxiety medications like Xanex and sleep medication like Ambien. Mowrey said more and more kids are turning to these drugs.

“One of ten 8th graders has used prescription drugs to get high, one in five 12th graders,” Mowery said. “It's a huge problem.”

The biggest part of the problem said pharmacist Sickler is mixing prescriptions.

“Pain meds, sleep meds anti anxiety can all of them combined caused respiratory depression that can stop your lungs from functioning,” she said.

Sickler, owner of Melrose Pharmacy in Phoenix is alarmed by the high number of people who go against doctors orders mixing medications for various ailments and upping their own dosages. 

Something is being done. Here in Arizona a new law passed late last year will create a data base to monitor prescription drugs. This is an effort to cut down on so-called doctor shopping, when patients try to get different prescriptions from different doctors. 

The accidental death of Heath Ledger brought to light the serious dangers of mixing medications. It was the same story for Obert’s son, Kent, a young man who seemed to have everything. 

“Ii know that he is sorry for the pain that he has caused,” Obert said. “And I could choose to be bitter and angry, I don't know who to be angry at though, I forgive my son.”

The DEA estimates nearly seven million Americans abuse prescription drugs, that's an 80 percent increase in just the last six years.

The new Arizona law will create a secure data base to identify patients who visit multiple physicians and pharmacies.