Posted on 11/01/2017 9:14:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
President Trump's declaration that opioid abuse is a public health emergency is sparking debate about addiction. Tragically, myths and misinformation are blocking the path to preventing more deaths.
Start with the causes of the opioid crisis. On "Face the Nation," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, chair of Trump's opioid commission, blamed overprescribing doctors. "This crisis started not on a street corner somewhere. This crisis started in the doctor's offices and hospitals of America." That's untrue, Governor.
It contradicts scientific evidence and lets drug abusers off the hook. At least three-quarters of opioid pill abusers and almost all heroin addicts got hooked without ever having been prescribed pain medication for an injury or illness, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Emergency room records show only a fraction - 13 percent -- of opioid overdose victims began taking drugs because of pain, according to the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine. The media feature many stories about patients who needed pain killers and later became addicts, but these are exceptions, not the rule.
Experimenting with opioids -- whether heroin or pills -- is almost always a choice. A bad choice. Young adults account for 90 percent of first-time abusers. To protect the next generation from making that mistake, Trump proposes a "massive advertising campaign to get people, especially children, not to want to take drugs in the first place." The liberal media mock Trump's proposal as a throwback to the 1980s, but in fact he's on the mark.
For decades, popular music has glamorized drug use. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel pays lip service to tackling tough political issues, but his guest lineup this week includes Ty Dolla $ign, whose music videos showcase drug use.
Trump's offering an alternative message. History proves it can work. In 2012 and 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ran hard hitting and graphic ads against smoking, with ex-smokers talking about their own lung disease, cancer and other miseries. The ads cut smoking among youth and convinced 400,000 smokers to quit for good. Trump's campaign should be just as terrifying. Show hospitalized teens with their arms amputated because of infections from heroin needles and brain-damaged overdose victims in nursing homes.
Warning about opioid abuse sounds like a no-brainer. So why do activists like Kassandra Frederique of the Drug Policy Alliance deplore "the persistent stigma of drug use"? As if we're not supposed to hurt addicts' feelings. With drug overdose deaths at record highs, that's misguided.
You no longer see smoking in movies or on television. Stigmatizing cigarettes worked. So why de-stigmatize opioids? We can help those already hooked without doing that.
Christie calls addiction a "disease." It's true that some people succumb to it more than others. But new research suggests the disease metaphor could be hurtful. Addicts who believe they have the free will to quit have a much higher success rate than those who think of themselves as diseased, according to new research from the University of Minnesota and Florida State University. Quitting Parkinson's or Alzheimer's isn't possible, but getting off drugs is.
Harvard professor Gene Heyman insists addicts can choose to stop using drugs once "the penalties for excessive use become overwhelming," such as losing their job or their kids.
Half of addicts who quit do it without treatment. The drug treatment industry doesn't want you to know that. The industry's salivating for more public funds, and joining Democrats in bashing Trump for not spending more. But he's right. Families exhaust their savings and taxpayers foot ever-mounting bills for treatment despite a dismal success rate (under 30 percent) at most rehabs.
To save lives and get better results for the $50 billion already being spent yearly, Washington needs to stop pinning the blame on the medical community, scrap political correctness and turn to the research. And most important, bombard young people with warnings against ever trying drugs.
“Of all the addicts now, how many can say they were coerced into taking drugs?”
I think it’s more a matter of easy access. People don’t realize that “heroin” these days comes in a pill form ... and its cheap.
Back in the 80s-90s, when I was a kid, I only saw marijuana and the occasional cocaine or acid user here and there. I was never into any of that garbage (well, beer and the occasional weed hit). Anecdotal, yes, but the town I grew up in was basically a drug free zone compared to today.
I never saw heroin, and of my friends from back then that continued to use drugs, only two come to mind that found heroin later in life (one beat it, the other hasn’t ... and it is frigging sad). Most of us simply weren’t too into anything dealing with drugs and booze after hitting 18. Life was a lot more interesting than that garbage.
Moreover, while weed was cheap, coke wasn’t ... and I don’t think the other illicit drugs were exactly cheap.
These days, according to my stepson anyway, it is a piece of cake to get all sorts of pills for next to nothing. Doesn’t matter how poor or rich your neighborhood is ... there are drugs everywhere.
Today, there’s simply a higher probability that someone, regardless of their intelligence or how they were raised, makes a ridiculously stupid decision in a social situation that leads to a life of torture due to the abundance of these drugs. They are literally everywhere. The drugs are so damn cheap that you might have your drinks spiked with the crap and not even know it!
The drug problem in this country is more on the illegal supply side. There’s far too much out there. I won’t discount doctors being pill pushers, but fighting them right now is not the right battle. The scum that deal this crap should be dealt with ... I’d even advocate the death penalty for those that get caught dealing more than twice. Drugs like meth and heroin destroy entire communities these days.
People seem to have an innate need to control other people because "I know what's moral/correct/healthy/best for you." This goes for people on all sides of the political spectrum.
I don’t buy the data presented by the author.
I’ve known 3 opioid pill addicts, and all of them got their start with prescriptions...AND MAINTAINED THEIR ADDICTION WITH PRESCRIPTIONS.
Yes, in the case of those three, doctors contributed and enabled their poor character and weakness of their addiction.
“Half of addicts who quit do it without treatment. “
Likely a higher number.
Those who quit on their own (taper down, then cold turkey) never hit the radar.
I know that was my case.
Tylenol is the biggest cause of liver disease.
Well said.
I see a tremendous amount of people on chronic opioids for muscle skeletal pain, prescribed by pain clinics. Isn’t it interesting that the rise in opioid abuse coincides with the rise in pain management center, which do things extremely well.
1. They know how to prescribe
2. They know how to bill
‘and good people are suffering as a result-’
typical bureaucratic nonsense; why work something out reasonably, when you can overkill it...
I had oral surgery some years ago; pain from sliced gums is quite the exotic experience...naproxen (Aleve) did nothing; hydrocontin with acetominiphen (Norco) worked beautifully...
Forcing people to feed their addictions from illegal, unregulated sources always, always results in more crime and more death!
’ I assume he’ll be going on short rest tonight.’
I thought Yu Darvish was going...if anyone should be rested, it’s he...
All of this is making it harder for them to become prescription mills.
My first wife's uncle was arrested for trading prescriptions for sexual favors with women. But that was a long time ago now. He got caught because someone turned him in. Most likely an enraged husband or boyfriend.
Then we knew of a doctor in Virginia that looked down your throat and prescribed whatever opioid you said works for you. But that too has been 14 years or more ago.
So yes the problem is much smaller than it used to be. The major problem today is home brewed opioid concoctions that have no controls on the strength being created. Another problem is the theft of prescription drugs from others & pharmacies. Though I suspect those are pretty low as well.
‘The problem is the a$$hole druggies’
you’ve hit the nail on the head...exactly...
What did Kershaw pitch last time...4 or 5 innings?
I assume he can go again on 3 days rest.
Long relief?
No welfare.
No free government medical treatment.
Hospitals don’t have to take anyone who hasn’t paid, and can’t be sued for that.
Most people still knew someone who died of overdose even back then. They also knew that unless they went to the church nobody was going to resuscitate an addict with no job who did it to themself.
‘I assume he can go again on 3 days rest.’
I doubt we’ll see Kershaw tonight; and maybe never again in a Dodger uni...
For the most part-It’s a lifestyle choice.
Trouble is, these morons make a choice then can’t live with the consequences. The mark of a truly immature and stupid person.
Doctors are clearly getting kickbacks from drug companies to write prescriptions. I had a couple of root canals done last year. Moderately painful, but nothing i can’t handle knowing the danger of opiates. Yet two dentists insisted I at least take the prescription just in case. They were way to eager to give me the scripts even after telling them twice I didn’t want or need it.
My brother in law is a doctor and he blames Joint Commission and their regs and demands on hospitals and doctors to declare war on patient pain. In the last couple of times I was in the hospital the first words they asked me is are you in pain and what is the level of pain 1-10 scale.
I had hemorrhoid surgery last year and there was some major pain and I was prescribed an opioid. I took as prescribed the following day and part of another day and then went to Tylenol with some discomfort but it was easily manageable with ice packs and after another day or two I was sore but fine. But they wanted to make sure I had no pain if possible.
That being said I have had friends who have gone to the local ER with sudden stomach or back pains and the local ER doctor only wanted to prescribe opioids and send them home. One lady friend of mine went to the ER for continuing back pain which she had never had before and she was in her 50’s and the doctor ran no test, did no x-rays, just wanted to write a script for pain meds and send her home. She finally yelled at him. “I am not some pill head looking for a hit, my back has hurt me for two weeks and isn’t getting better I want to know what is wrong with me. Either run some test and try and figure out why this is happening or get out of my room and send me a real doctor!”
She ended up leaving the ER and tore the script up and threw it at the doctor and said I won’t be back here to you quacks and went to a bigger city hospital and found out she had slipped a disc. Easily detectable but not when you are just trying to clear an ER out.
Opioids for hemorrhoid surgery sounds terrible! They make me constipated. I avoid them like the plague.
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