And after we take opioids away from all the cancer patients, we can legalize euthanasia for those too weak to stand the torture. Once the government passes its new laws and seizes grandma’s house because she had dared give her dying husband the only efficacious medicine she could find; once the addicts family loses their livelihood because their son or daughter brought opioids into their business; there will still be thousands dying from overdoses every year. Sorry, but this is all a lie.
There is no opioid crisis, and no one is addressing the real issue: There is a fentanyl pandemic that is killing these addicts. It is not a prescription drug problem. It is not even a “recreational” drug problem. It is China and Mexico.
China produces tons of fentanyl that is imported to Mexico and then mixed with other drugs. The processing results in lethal doses of fentanyl randomly distributed in the illegal drugs. Once it hits the streets, people die.
The number of deaths from opioid drugs hasn’t changed. We don’t have any huge increase in opioid use. It’s just that fentanyl is killing a disproportionate number of addicts. Thinking they’re taking a tegular hit, they are ingesting a lethal dose.
I’m truly sorry many parents lose their children to addiction. Im sure it’s unimaginably painful; but so is cancer and numerous other illnesses. The difference is we can eliminate those types of pain through the proper use of medicine including opioids.
Conflating this crisis with the drug mills and previous abuses of legal drugs doesn’t only deny the facts; it denies effective medicine from the most vulnerable and sick patients. Taking away legal medicine from those who are suffering from real chronic pain is inhuman. It is torture.
Law enforcement is completely overwhelmed by illicit smuggling. Any black market drug is easily available anywhere in the country by anyone who wished to buy it. The purchase and use of black market drugs is a suicidal act engaged in by millions of people every day. It is a game of Russian roulette with the odds against the user increasing with every hit.
Yes there is a crisis, children are being given pain medications and other pharmaceuticals for minor procedures and it is not just the doctors that are providing them.
I am focused in one of my businesses on Caregiving and that includes pain medications, and another is on Addiction. A dear friend of mine who is more or less confined to a wheelchair needs pain medications and has artificial hips and shoulders and without them he would suffer needlessly. If you understood the degree of dispensing from doctors where other routes can be taken you might see the amount of over prescribing that is going on.
Fentanyl is one used in the shall I say “recreational” mode or by those who have become numb to lesser medications and are amping up what they use. no one in my view is trying to remove them from the equation, and I am involved in this daily and on a very personal level.
I honor your opinion but the facts are there, and doctors in many cases are the worst and dispensing drugs legally that are nearly impossible to break free from especially cold turkey like Benzos. Fentanyl is now yesterdays news as there is a new version that is multiples stronger.
One step at a time, but they do have their uses. My sister died from Multiple Myeloma and at the end she took medication for the pain.
Agreed. Might as well put bullets in the chronic pain people. Not a big group but not a small group either. Seems so heartless and stupid to kill true pain treatment people in order to kill the druggies. Killing the druggies will cause unintended consequences. Does something need to be done - yes. What that is - idk. I often suggest building a town /small city cheaply) offer free unlimited QUALITY drugs in a contained zone. Then randomly spike supply with 25-50 percent increases in potency. Addicts will happily use 1-4 years to kill them selfs. Win win IMHO. Heartless? Maybe but optional and efficient. Definitely cheaper than jail/rehab/jail/repeat...
The above graph shows that fentanyl (mostly illicit, as you note) is the “main” driver of the problem,, however, heroin and natural and semi-synthetics are also killing at an increasing rate.
I have personal experience with a relative taking prescribed Norco in a low dosage for chronic pain (exceptionally severe arthritis). Even Norco in low doses is really scary stuff: It is highly addictive, and I have no doubt that had I not intervened with the sitters to make sure my relative only has access to what’s prescribed at a given day and hour, my relative would have critically, likely fatally OD’d on the stuff by now. (Yes, I am my relative’s POA for Health.) Also - maybe it’s just an individual reaction, but even the low dosage, with time, “dopes up” my relative to a dismaying degree. Judgement, in many areas, just went to “h”, fairly quickly.
>>There is no opioid crisis, and no one is addressing the real issue
agents uncover massive strong shipments that are at lethal overdose strength just from skin contact
smuggling such “hazardous cargo” is a crisis whether you want to call it a WMD or not