[calvincaspian]

his president and our politicians in Washington are serious about opioids. Congress has already appropriated $6 billion to fight the good fight.

As awful as it is to lose Americans at wartime levels, it is heartening to see that we have also come together as if it were wartime to combat this evil.

[cherry]

we as a people must stop demanding drugs for everything...

our kids seeing us popping and they'll do the same...

we leave our pain pills in the cupboard and surprised that "some" are missing....

[Wally_Kalbacken]

I hate to raise it - but, based on the folks I have encountered who are compelled to abuse opioids - is it possible that the right people are overdosing?

[drunknsage]

Fentanyl is the leading killer and it’s produced legally along with a host of other drugs that kill even more people every year through Adverse Drug Reactions. Is big daddy Gov going to go after their pimps in big Pharma? Don’t hold your breath.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks so much for your support to this point... I personally apprecaite it...
FReepers, it's far beyond time to wrap up this FReep-a-thon.  Lets do it today.  Please chip in.

President Donald J. Trump and the Free Republic of the United States of America
President Donald J. Trump's address to the United Nations on 09/19/2017.

Ramirez political cartoon:  Tillerson You're Fired LARGE VERSION 03/18/2018: LINK  LINK to regular sized versions of his political cartoons (archive).
Garrison political cartoon:  Fishing Expedition LARGE VERSION 03/20/2018: LINK  LINK (scroll down) to regular sized versions of his political cartoons (archive).

FReepers, 95.824% of the First Quarter FReep-a-thon goal has been met.  Click above and pencil in your donation now.  Please folks, lets end this FReepathon.  Thank you!
...this is a general all-purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

Just $155.00 dollars to 95.00%

[DiogenesLamp]

Editorial: Plague of opioids

I no longer recall how many pro-drug-legalization people I have spoken to regarding the natural progression of drugs in a society.

[Obadiah]

Here we go... again. The great opioid hysteria.

So we lump most drugs as opioids and then rail against this “scourge”. No distinction is made in the hysteria data between legitimate opioids used to control or manage pain, and all the garbage that is manufactured on the street, or in China, Mexico, or elsewhere and brought into this country.

When most casual readers think of opioids they think of OxyContin or similar derivatives. What is actually tied up in these scare statistics is Fentanyl, Carfentanil, etc.

But, yeah, let’s all just go nuts and get hysterical, that way the politicians can, “do something”.

[Hildy]

How about alcohol? This is nothing compared to that.

[ichabod1]

I don’t know. I have my doubts. It would be more reassuring that they were spending 5 bill to combat this if I were confident that they weren’t using other funds to promote drug growing and smuggling. Like the Bush War on Terror, they may be fighting them “over there” and ignoring them “over here.”

[camle]

I wonder how many of these addicts didn’t know what they were taking when they started?

[Nachoman]

I am the opioid crisis. I suffer chronic pain and am on Fentanyl and Norco. I am monitored by my doctor, the Feds set limits on how much he can prescribe, the pharmacy will not refill prescriptions a day before my previous meds run out. Additionally, my insurance company will unilaterally deny coverage of meds they think are over-prescribed or consider too expensive.

So what additional controls will help reign in this scourge?

[Yaelle]

This is kind of a dumb question.

In the 1960s opiates were easier to get than today and many young people died from heroin. I think it was considered cool, from all I’ve read about that era. A lot of music stars were addicted and many died. They began a huge anti heroin advertising and educational campaign. By the time I came of age, in a wealthy high school in Los Angeles, you could get any drug in the hallways EXCEPT heroin. In the 80s, all the drugs except heroin were thought to be “cool,” even crystal meth, but heroin was seen as a very low class, dangerous drug that no one wanted.

How did the country achieve the heroin hatred of the 1980s? I’m sure that decade probably had much less heroin addictions and deaths than now. Was it straight up supply and demand (since even the CIA was pushing cocaine that decade)? Was there anything to the campaign post 1960s to denigrate heroin?

[eyeamok]

For a little perspective: Through their analysis of four other studies examining death rate information, the doctors estimate there are at least 251,454 deaths due to medical errors annually in the United States. The authors believe the number is actually much higher, as home and nursing home deaths are not counted in that total.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the inspector general in 2008 reported 180,000 deaths by medical error among Medicare patients alone.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/03/health/medical-error-a-leading-cause-of-death/index.html

[GailA]

22 Veterans commit Suicide DAILY because their illnesses can’t be cured, treated any other way than Opioids. They felt the sting 3 months before the Public did.

Veterans who had a modicum of life now are bed or wheelchair ridden. Marine Robert Rose JR https://www.facebook.com/groups/vets.fight.back/
You don’t have to be a Veteran to join Robert’s fight, just a concerned citizen on how our Veterans are being treated and Chronic Pain Patients.

Neither US nor State Congress recognize that some illnesses are NOT treatble in any other fashion.
In 1 day in Tennessee 308 Pain Clinics shut their doors, other states soon followed. That leaves TN with 66 Pain Clinics for the entire state. Most are run by APN, PA under a GP or Internist license, not a Specialist in your health condition. What do they know about Neuropathy, Fibromyalgia, EDS, Lupus, and a host of other disease that cause extreme pain. All they know is that some PIG PHARMA said it will treat it. BULL HOCKEY!

I am a Intractable Pain Patient, which is worse than a Chronic Pain Patient. There are no cures, no surgeries, only 1 Benzo Valium to treat the Neuropathy and Fibromyalgia and Gastropresis spasms. With GP you can’t afford to take a real Opioid except as a rare use.

What the JAMA REPORT DIDN’T FIND https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2018/3/10/what-the-krebs-opioid-study-didnt-find

10 Myths of Opioid Addiction (Roger Chriss has EDS and he knows all to well what the havoc of removing pain meds causes)
https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2017/12/24/10-myths-about-the-opioid-crisis

Dear DC why are you Torturing Pain Patients https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/06/22/dear-cdc-why-are-you-torturing-pain-patients-11469

He is suing US Rep Phil Roe http://nationalpainreport.com/vet-with-chronic-pain-denied-access-to-his-congressman-8833959.html