Posted on 05/10/2012 9:49:03 PM PDT by iowamark
Americans consume 80 percent of the world's supply of painkillers -- more than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year -- as the country's prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes.
That's enough drugs to give every single American 64 Percocets or Vicodin. And pain pill prescriptions continue to surge, up 600 percent in ten year, thanks to doctors who are more and more willing to hand out drugs to patients who are suffering.
As more people get their hands on these potentially-dangerous drugs, more are taking them to get high. Their drug abuse leads to 14,800 deaths a year -- more than from heroin and cocaine combined.
'We've become a society of wusses,' Long Island, New York, pharmacist Howard Levine told the BBC.
Mr Levine stopped carrying all of the major addictive prescription drugs after he was robbed twice by addicts looking to get high.
Nationwide, police are reporting increases in robberies and other crimes by people who are addicted to oxycodone and hydrocodone, the key ingredient in most prescription pain pills...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Agreed. this article is bullshit. I take Hydrocodone on ocasion because of arthritis and increasingly debilitating Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in both hands, wrists, arms, to the shoulders/collar bones.
Also suffer from severe sinus pain, esp. during this past allergy season, aggravated by a major bronchial tract cough and infections.
Hydrocodone is super Acetaphetimen. I’m not sure what the hospital gave me after cardiac arrest/ stents, defibrilator/pacemaker implant, but I’m not addicted to anything.
Also, we are getting older as a nation and along with that comes pains from old injuries (I’ll give you mine if you want); pain from war injuries; bone deterioration (ask my wife if you want to know about this type of pain); and some specific diseases.
Anyone can abuse a drug. Smart people don’t, and live longer. Dummies abuse drugs and die. That’s the way it is.
Dummies also drive too fast, and die. Dummies also drink and drive (my son had to bury two of his best friends who did, and that hurt him more than seeing enemy dead in Iraq).
This is just another “tear down America” story from the dying nation of England. Wait till I write their obituary -
“Died from marxism, unlimited immigration, Islamic-jihad & Sharia law, and lousy food. And you criticized America?”
And
“just so all you free druggers/libertarians remember:...”
When (and because) drug addicted people, prescription OR illicit, are allowed to vote, the are in fact harming others - many, actually.
“These pain killers are too dangerous. The regular population can use aspirin. Doctors will be permitted to prescribe pain killers to those in government or those who have graduated from Harvard.”
Too dangerous. And even worse, generic.
“never had a migraine that kicked him in the head with pain so severe that it. . .”
well I surely have. Demerol works nicely. You still feel the pain, you just don’t care about it nor anything else. You could never be able to take care of your family while on it, for instance.
Zomig words like magic so do a number of other vasodilators all of which carry side effects that do not include complete underfunctioning.
They take away the cause of the pain and are way more effective than opiates.
People who depend on opiates for long term problems are not functioning effectively.
The biggest drug problem is “Hopium”.
“Hopium”
As in Hopin’ Obie and his gobmnt’ll take care of everything?
Calling people “smart” and “dumb” as a way of dismissing a problem is absurd. Tell that to the parents of the kid who died in the drunk-driving accident or from an overdose. “Well, sorry, ma’am, but this is one way of clearing the dumb kids out of the gene pool.”
The truth is smart, good people make mistakes. We are all sinners. Society has a job to educate and protect people. The anecdotal evidence I’ve seen backs up this article that the U.S. has a serious and growing problem with prescription drug abuse. Something needs to be done about it. We can debate what that something is. But to wash your hands of it and say “hey, all it does is get rid of the dumb people” is not ethical, moral or helpful. And let’s not forget either that those DUI drivers don’t just kill themselves but other innocent people as well.
I am loathe to even take an aspirin or Advil with a headache
why is America taking 80% of the worlds' painkillers?....
That’s because we have the world’s biggest pain in the @ss for POTUS
I was going to write the exact line, but you beat me to the punch!
A kidney stone hurts like an M’ er F’er NO matter what you do!
Suck it up... drugs are worse. stones pass... stupid DR.’s with drugs DO NOT PASS
LOL. It's the tyrannical Drug War, and its associated black markets, which drive the street cost of these government controlled substances into the stratosphere.
In a free and open market, the cost of these things would be negligible, which would virtually eliminate the crimes which you bemoan.
Contraband law is Tyrannical law, and it will always produce magnitudes more misery (and less freedom, of course) than the problems it attempts to solve, just as alcohol Prohibition did.
A blind man could see it with a cane...
Nonsense. You have completely flipped the story around to try to hide the fact it disproves your position. The vast majority of prescription drug users are legal - it's the number of them that's the "epidemic," NOT the number of them that turn to crime. On the other hand, criminalizing other drugs that are just as destructive and dangerous makes ALL of those users criminals - and gives us the prison state we have today.
Not to mention that teeny little legal issue of whether you own your own body, or whether the state does.
the opiates in regular dosage are fairly benign physiologically
problem starts when someone cannot simply do with a routine dose like 5-10mg of oxycodone or hydrocodone 2-3 times a day and has to go always reaching for the buzz...the heightened sense of well being that comes and goes
I have cervical arthritis, sternal arthritis and lumbar issues and nursed two hip abscesses the size of a bar of soap the past year
I get 2 Lortabs or Percocets a day and cervical spinal injections 3-4 times annually...they help some
I have been offered stronger stuff like patches, dilaudid or ms contin...time released morphine but turned them down
i prefer to take lower dosage entry level opiates as I see fit...some days might be a 10mg day...others a 30...I had a 40 day when the surgeon did two I&Ds on the abscesses...with no anesthetic and I had no meds since I feared they might give me something more general...wow..pain worse than my gun shots or open heart
anyhow...I function fine...5 kids...work all day...and i mean all day...often every day...self employed
I don't drink...no street dope...and the docs will test for that time to time
anyhow...it helps folks like me..worst part for me is the tylenol...which they do omit form the higher level dope
there is a move afoot to omit it from hydrocodone and oxycodone
btw...shame of banning Darvocet in my view
but it is abused...no question
pain dope and xanax and hormones and johnson dope are probably 75% of the pharmacy market in the US,,,i see the junkies and resellers at the doc and drugstore all the time...you can just tell...but they also test to make sure you are taking them or they will ask for a pill count...it's pretty rigid...and if u doc shop and they find out...and they will since all pain meds are on a system with drugstores here in TN...then the doc will drop u....that is a genuine pain/nerve ablation/epidural sort of practice....the non genuine pill peddlers get closed quick and move around a lot
as a kid I could always take more dope than anyone but i always never made a habit either...never..cept cigarettes for a while
some folks can just do that and other go hog wild...one drink..one snort...one pill...anything ...next thing you know they are taking 10-20 times the therapeutic doses..like someone we all know and love so well did..
Kidney stones are a factor in the invention of drugs. After working a urology unit and also giving childbirth it is my oinion that kidney stones are as if not more painful and with a non productive outcome so to speak.
demerol for a few days in the hospital is absolutely harmless. Don’t let the guy out for a pass to go to a boting station.
Just for info, demerol is just great for relaxing the ureter, allowing that awful kidney srone to passm after which there is no more pain and absolutely no need for further pain meds above acetomenophen or aspirin.
beats being mandated off life support in the UK...
beats being mandated off life support in the UK...
When I head to the drug superstores it’s either aspirin or ibuprofen. Wished it was like the old days when you just drank whiskey to rid the pain...
That’s gotta just about knock you right off the rails.
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