Opioid and heroin crisis triggered by doctors overprescribing painkillers

[Serious]

According to researchers at Brandeis University, the University of North Florida and Johns Hopkins University, policymakers must look beyond painkiller abuse, also called non-medical use, in their efforts to reduce opioid overdose deaths. In a comprehensive investigation, the scientists show that since 2002, new cases of non-medical abuse have declined, yet painkiller overdose deaths have soared; evidence, they say, that recreational use of painkillers is not a key driver of the opioid crisis. The authors suggest that policymakers should instead focus on preventing new cases of opioid addiction caused by both medical and non-medical use and expanding access to opioid addiction treatment.

Published in the Annual Review of Public Health, The Prescription Opioid and Heroin Crisis:A Public Health Approach to an Epidemic of Addiction reframes the heroin and prescription drug abuse problem as a wave of opioid addiction caused by overprescribing of painkillers by doctors. The paper points to the increased prevalence of opioid addiction as the explanation for high rates of overdose deaths and for the influx of heroin in non-urban communities. Since 1997, the number of Americans seeking treatment for addiction to painkillers increased by 900%. The prevalence of opioid addiction started rising as long-term prescribing of opioids for chronic pain, a practice encouraged by opioid manufacturers, became more common.

"I think we have overestimated the benefits of prescription opioids and underestimated their risks," says study co-author Dr. Caleb Alexander, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-director of the Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness. "Although opioids have many risks, their addictive potential is of especially great concern."

The researchers suggest that some of the same public health strategies used for controlling disease outbreaks can be effective for bringing the opioid crisis under control. "We need to prevent new cases of opioid addiction and we need to expand access to treatment for the millions of Americans who are already addicted," says the study's lead author, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. "Without better access to addiction treatment, overdose deaths will remain high and heroin will keep flooding in."

Prevention strategies outlined in the comprehensive review include public education on the risks of prescription opioids, and wider use of state prescription drug monitoring program (PDMPs) data to alert prescribers to possible doctor-shopping by patients.

"By encouraging and, if necessary, requiring prescribers to use PDMPs, and by pro-actively sending them prescription data on their patients, states can help medical providers intervene at an early stage of addiction and get patients who need it into treatment," says John Eadie, co-author and director of the PDMP Center of Excellence at Brandeis.

The study also recommends increasing access to the addiction medicine buprenorphine and ensuring that naloxone, an opioid overdose antidote, is available to emergency first responders, syringe exchange programs, and family members of people at risk for overdose. The authors contend that opioid addiction has long been overlooked as a key driver of the opioid epidemic, and a new approach that integrates primary, secondary and tertiary prevention strategies is needed.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...cedaily+(Latest+Science+News+--+ScienceDaily)


@thekingsmen
@OneManGang

Spoiler

 

[Fart Knocker]

ive been saying this forever. the pharmacuetical companies are responsible for the heroin crisis currently hitting the east coast

 

[Hiphoplives4eva]

yeah blame the doctors! Not the addicted patients routinely coercing their doctors to give them narcs!

 

[Ed MOTHEREFFING G]

yeah blame the doctors! Not the addicted patients routinely coercing their doctors to give them narcs!

you've never seen the transition in person i take

girl i worked with

hurt her back

got vicodin,

got well

had some extra

became a habit

her and her bf started using oxy...half a pill...whole pill...two pills...FIGHTING over pills [like fist fight]....to FREEBASING and vaporizing pills

to heroin

now she in an out of jail

we worked together for like two years in finance...it was a shame to watch her life fall apart.


overprescribing powerful pills is dangerous

 

[8====D]

weak willed people are the reason behind this so called "drug epidemic"

miss me with this bullshıt

 

[无名的]

I used to see this every single day at work. It almost always started with legally prescribed pain pills. And for you gun control nuts... I'd also see heroin junkies stealing legal weapons and trading them for drugs to dealers/felons, which would often end up used in the commission of a crime.

You can't control everything.



But there should be more control over legal drugs.

 

[thekingsmen]

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/4/johann_hari_everything_we_know_about

 

[the cac mamba]

just highlights the disgusting practice that is marijuana prohibition

this stuff is 'medicine'

 

[Fart Knocker]

weak willed people are the reason behind this so called "drug epidemic"

miss me with this bullshıt

ignorant post of the day

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

but it's legal prescribed medicine, how could it be unsafe?

 

[8====D]

ignorant post of the day

call it how i see it

 

[Brosef]

some studies show that opioids are very safe and effective as long as they're properly monitored by the prescribers

 

[tru_m.a.c]

http://static.latimes.com/oxycontin...COu1WvgHGOjYJQ&_hsmi=29288411#nt=oft12aH-1gp2

The Times investigation, based on thousands of pages of confidential Purdue documents and other records, found that:

• Purdue has known about the problem for decades. Even before OxyContin went on the market, clinical trials showed many patients weren’t getting 12 hours of relief. Since the drug’s debut in 1996, the company has been confronted with additional evidence, including complaints from doctors, reports from its own sales reps and independent research.
• The company has held fast to the claim of 12-hour relief, in part to protect its revenue. OxyContin’s market dominance and its high price — up to hundreds of dollars per bottle — hinge on its 12-hour duration. Without that, it offers little advantage over less expensive painkillers.
• When many doctors began prescribing OxyContin at shorter intervals in the late 1990s, Purdue executives mobilized hundreds of sales reps to “refocus” physicians on 12-hour dosing. Anything shorter “needs to be nipped in the bud. NOW!!” one manager wrote to her staff.
• Purdue tells doctors to prescribe stronger doses, not more frequent ones, when patients complain that OxyContin doesn’t last 12 hours. That approach creates risks of its own. Research shows that the more potent the dose of an opioid such as OxyContin, the greater the possibility of overdose and death.
• More than half of long-term OxyContin users are on doses that public health officials consider dangerously high, according to an analysis of nationwide prescription data conducted for The Times.

 

[Serious]

http://static.latimes.com/oxycontin-part1/?utm_campaign=KHN:+Daily+Health+Policy+Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=29288411&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8t9GqitOM2Ox3BgJrfs3ib8Ni9Z5zKIGFuAL12bpIQ0De-plO6KOfsmbHp7LtJg0VoQiwbrJp7-TvqCOu1WvgHGOjYJQ&_hsmi=29288411#nt=oft12aH-1gp2

The Times investigation, based on thousands of pages of confidential Purdue documents and other records, found that:

• Purdue has known about the problem for decades. Even before OxyContin went on the market, clinical trials showed many patients weren’t getting 12 hours of relief. Since the drug’s debut in 1996, the company has been confronted with additional evidence, including complaints from doctors, reports from its own sales reps and independent research.
• The company has held fast to the claim of 12-hour relief, in part to protect its revenue. OxyContin’s market dominance and its high price — up to hundreds of dollars per bottle — hinge on its 12-hour duration. Without that, it offers little advantage over less expensive painkillers.
• When many doctors began prescribing OxyContin at shorter intervals in the late 1990s, Purdue executives mobilized hundreds of sales reps to “refocus” physicians on 12-hour dosing. Anything shorter “needs to be nipped in the bud. NOW!!” one manager wrote to her staff.
• Purdue tells doctors to prescribe stronger doses, not more frequent ones, when patients complain that OxyContin doesn’t last 12 hours. That approach creates risks of its own. Research shows that the more potent the dose of an opioid such as OxyContin, the greater the possibility of overdose and death.
• More than half of long-term OxyContin users are on doses that public health officials consider dangerously high, according to an analysis of nationwide prescription data conducted for The Times.

No real easy solution

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Pharmaceutical companies are some thugs