Atty Gen Moody Calls on DEA to Reexamine Opioid Prescription Quotas to Help Curb the Opioid Crisis
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody joined seven states in pushing federal regulators to consider more information as they set manufacturing limits on prescription painkillers in hopes a more thorough review will lead to fewer overdose deaths as the fight against the opioid crisis continues. The coalition filed comments late Tuesday arguing Drug Enforcement Administration officials must do more to account for over-prescribing and expand its universe of information sources.
Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “Seventeen Floridians are dying every day from opioid abuse, as the national opioid crisis continues to ravage our country. To help reduce the excess supply of prescription opioids and save lives, I am calling on the DEA to reexamine the quotas that drug manufacturers have for specific painkiller production. This action could help reduce drug overdose deaths by limiting the amount of leftover pain medication that could fall into the hands of Floridians struggling with addiction.”
The coalition recognizes that current data sets make accounting for diversion difficult but argues such complexity cannot hinder progress. For instance, its members suggest that the DEA take into greater account data from its Drug Take Back Day as evidence of over-prescribing.
The states also suggest DEA officials should consider best practices developed by the medical community and state regulators, in addition to improving the usability of its reporting system and its suspicious orders database.
The DEA’s proposed limits for 2020 slash hydrocodone manufacturing by 19 percent and oxycodone by 8.8 percent in one year.
Florida’s attorney general joined six other states in the filing, including attorneys general in Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Nebraska, West Virginia and the governor of Kentucky.
Filed under: General Problems
So punish the pain patients further? Push them to illicit street drugs and more overdoses on laced and black market product? That IS what more limits will do, that is what has already happened. How about treating root cause? how about finding and treating pain correctly rather than deny or put people on meds not ever meant as a pain medication yet somehow became just that. t isnt over prescribing causing this problem, maybe in the past with the oxy disaster but not now. Now there are more non-medicated pain patients who have lost their life or way of life because of restrictions on doctors to treat their patient. And quit attacking natural medicine, plant and herbs that do no harm. Over a thousand years of use proves it works and is not harming or is less harmful than your prescriptions. We do not need more studies to prove that!
Replying to ‘Criminally Inpain’:
I agree with you that this situation needs to change. But, I currently find myself falling into a “pit” of feeling hopeless that this is our new norm, or if not the new norm, that it will take many years to walk back the harm that has been done to CPPs by state and federal government agencies.
I am 75 and a palliative care intractable chronic pain patient. I live in Alaska and am going through a crisis that seems to have began at the start of this year. I was considered to be on a stable dosage of meds at the end of 2018. But, my pharmacy informed me that they were adopting a policy on not filling any script over 90 MME. I talked with the head pharmacist multiple times and presented documents to him (e.g., the AMA resolutions) stating that this was harmful to the patients health. I got the pharmacy to agree not to implement the new policy. I have checked with other pharmacies and found out that many around the State have implemented this policy. When I showed my script to one of those pharmacies for the possibility of filling, they said they do not even stock the 20 mg oxycodone pills shown on my script. I asked about how they (then) filled scripts for their customers with cancer (and/or palliative care patients) and they became hostile saying (essentially) “none of your business”.
But, then my Anchorage pain clinic told me that they were putting me on a Forced Medication Reduction (FMR) to 90 MME (or lower) – this would be at least an 80% reduction of my pain meds. My clinic doctor had previously written in my clinic records twice that my ‘medication was medically necessary and required for me to maintain my functional status’, but this statement is now (apparently) not considered to be of any significance.
I pointed out that this forced reduction was harmful to CPPs citing information from the Human Rights Commission, the AMA, the FDA, and the CDC. My palliative care doctor called my pain doctor trying to stop the FMR. Nothing worked. I was told that if I did not accept the FMR, my clinic would dismiss me as their patient.
I tried contacting my congressional reps. Got no response (after 5 tries) from Don Young’s Office. Senator Murkowski & Sullivan offices said that they could not interfere in the policies of a private business. I filed reports with the: FDA, AMA, & HHS but got no response. I also reported my situation to the Alaska Disabilities Legal Services, and the ACLU. Both are “non-profits” and were out of funding for taking on new cases.
I have called about a 10 lawyers, but could not find one to take my case in the area of Civil Rights, violations of the American’s with Disabilities Act, or even Malpractice. One CR lawyer I briefly talked with was totally naive about the plight of CPPs and said that a resolution of my situation would require legislative action. She also thought addiction and dependence were essentially the same and that addiction was caused by a “pill”, even though some physiological factors might come into play.
I am down now to trying to report this reduction of my medications to the State agency that handles elderly abuse cases. I believe that taking away needed pain meds resulting in increased pain is both physical and mental torture, pure and simple. As such, it would fall under “elderly abuse”. Whether or not, the State agency agrees with this remains to be seen.
I am at the “end of my rope” trying to stop this FMR, and am out of options. What is worst (to some degree) is that I don’t understand what could have happened at the State or Federal level to cause this misguided “crack down” on opioid/pain medications around the start of 2019. Prior to that, I was told in so many words by my pain doctor that I was a “legacy” CPP and that there was no policy stating that my pain meds had an 90 MME limit.
I live in Fairbanks and my clinic had an office here until January 2019 when that office abruptly closed. Now I have to drive 800 miles round-trip to the clinic office in Anchorage.
If anyone knows what happened around the start of 2019 that caused this increase in opioid phobia, I would be glad to hear from you.
In summary, I do agree that our legislators need to fix this mess along with the agencies that have harmed CPPs with their policies. While writing letters will certainly not harm our cause, it has not proved helpful in the past as (apparently) those letters are being ignored. Also, documents/research such as CIAAG’s “The Violation of a Nation” and studies showing that a “pill” does not cause addiction, that number of prescriptions written does not correlate to OD deaths, that few CPPs ever become addicted are being ignored.
I do think legal action might work. For example, if we CPPs started a legal defense fund and could hire an “expert” lawyer to submit to the courts a class action law suit. There would be a lot of challenges taking this course of action, but I think that this should be undertaken along with the letter writing campaign.
smh
I want to just scream, that these morons still get away with the blatantly false narrative….”overprescribing causes the supposed “crisis” my a$$. There’s already shortages of pain meds for acute injuries & surgeries (in the few places where doctors are still sane & prescribe them for those reasons…I still am in a state of appalled outrage b/c, f’rinstance, the woman who got a foot & a half of her intestines hacked out & was given, right before the anesthesia, a cup of water & 2 regular strength tylenol).
“What we’re doing isn’t working, we have to do it more & harder!” Are these sadistic scheisskopfs just so stupid & blind that they’re incapable of understanding that if something doesn’t work repeatedly, you need to try a different approach?? Do they not grok the concept that facts are different from propaganda? Drives me CRAZY!
Forcing responsible and compliant patients to a lower (ineffective) opioid dosage makes zero sense; especially when these patients have been medically diagnosed with degenerative physical conditions which are documented in the Social Security Administration’s BLUE BOOK used for determining permanent disability claims.
Many patients suffer both chronic and acute breakthrough pain. Acute breakthrough pain can put such a patient in bed for days. Yes, that is right – days.
In 2003 I was hospitalized in-patient for my pain management group practice to accurately determine dosages; this included morphine IV, Lyrica (pregabalin), Baclofen as muscle relaxant and nightly antidepressant (which was changed five years later).
The CDC announced its “all size fits all” opiate guideline in 2016.
In early 2018, began a monthly forced lowering of my MME from its 15 year “stable” dosage. My breakthrough pain increased, I compensated by taking increased NSAID by mouth. Over time, it resulted in anemia. Worse, I developed bleeding esophagus and duodenal ulcer (h. Pylori infection) and the anemic red blood cell count slowly improved.
I invest approximately $1600 on bi-weekly traditional Chinese Medicine acupuncture treatments to encourage my natural endorphins to return.
Yet, healing takes time. The benefits from traditional Chinese Medicine’s acupuncture also requires time because each patient is unique. Traditional Chinese Medicine’s acupuncture requires ongoing treatment, considering physiological challenges when a patient suffers acute pain from a confirmed spinal injury, degenerative disk disease, osteoarthritis, muscle spasms, failed spinal fusion surgery and nerve root damage.
CDC failed millions of patients, families and treating physicians when the controversial 2016 “guidelines” were published. CDC’s task force failed to consider all of the Social Security Administration’s BLUE BOOK medical conditions involving non-cancerous intractable pain.
2013 was a year when groundwork for adverse TV, internet and hardcopy news began to demonize any legitimate use of physician prescribed opiate Rx medication.
2014 saw Tramadol being reclassified as a controlled substance Schedule 4.
2015 was a year when a neighbor friend changed pain management clinicians, and was unscientifically forced off her stable oxymorphone dose replaced with Tramadol (she had burns and lumbar spine fusion).
2017 my neighbor friend took her own life because of unrelenting analgesia. She was very different from me. But when I learned of her untimely death…it hit too close to home for me.
2020 must be a year when the political power struggle stops, allowing legitimate pain management patients and their clinical treatment providers privacy.
Do not make legitimate pain management clinicians and patients take on punishment because of illicit Fentanyl users.
This is such bullshit it’s like they don’t want to realize the real problem which is from heroin and illicit fentanyl!Only .6percent of chronic pain patients become addicted.Taking away our medication is torturing cpp’s it so inhuman this is America we are free not to be in torturous pain!These lies against pain medication need to stop!!When given to a patient who is suffering it gives a quality of life!!The dea needs to stop being lazy and go after the real issue!!
I have got to stop shouting at my screens, I’m going to stroke out.
THE OVERDOSE DEATHS ARE FROM ILLICIT FENTANYL.
The real prescription opioid crisis is the systemic abandonment and torture of chronic pain sufferers. Cutting opioid production has not worked so far, further cuts are completely irrational, and actually compounding the problem, because legitimate pain patients are being driven to one (or two, or three) outcomes:
– suffer in silence, living a paltry, anguished existence and early mortality;
– street drugs, out of desperation to attempt to self-manage pain, fully aware that we may die; or
– suicide.
I just don’t understand.
Laura Robertson – CPASS
Chronic Pain Support Services
Patient Advocate, Peer Counsellor
I’m all for it!…
It will be an opportunity to prove supply chain reductions to legitimate end use, will not curb overdosing due to illegitimate use.
The DEA stated a week ago in a news release about the proposed reductions, that diversion, of late, was negligible, or something to that effect. These people are looking for a cause to justify their paycheck.
It’s a solution looking for the problem.
Bring it on, but let’s see if Pharmacist Steve, or such others, may want to be offically involved, with compensation, on an editorial or study review board.
We will just the facts, the true facts.
When is enough going to be enough? When were all dead or on suboxone seems to be their goal! As a chronic pain & addiction counselor that specializes in opioids for 25+yrs. I feel so frustrated & useless to comfort & help my pts.! As a life long chronic pain sufferer; I’m so tired of fighting, being terrorized, tortured & judged; that I feel like giving up & ending it all, just for some peace!
We have clearly been shown that we don’t matter & they could not care less; after all, were are just a bunch of junkies & who cares, we should just hurry up & go ahead & die being as we are just a drain on the overwhelmed healthcare system!!
I have fought this war for over 20yrs.& have maintained hope all the way; until yesterday when I lost my doc w/o any notice nor explanations whatsoever! I know many of you have had this or something worse happen. My doc did at least set me up w/ another doc willing to fill my meds, which I THANK God for!! However, the new doc will not take my ins. & he charges $200 per visit & thanks to the last DEA cutback made my meds impossible to find; I had to get them compounded which what was $25 per month, is now $350 for the same exact thing!
So I’m asking, no, begging for all of my fellow victims, friends, family, docs & pharms. that are also being scapegoated to join in bombarding letters to not just these people, but ALL our lawmakers, DEA, FDA,etc.. But especially the media, until they hear us as 1 LOUD & BOOMING voice, that we will NOT go down quietly & end our SUFFERING of SILENCE!! #sospain
There are some (out of the millions who need pain management) who have been writing, calling, emailing for a long time now. If we each donated a couple dollars that would be enough for a defense, for articles of truth to be published but unfortunately most will say (we have seen this before) they are all for it but because they are on a limited income, cannot afford that dollar or two but will gladly share the information so others can donate. We also see many who will gladly share the email addy of reporters etc to get our side covered but, you know, they arent comfortable writing. Maybe when their meds are taken away, friends are dying, they will start writing. The few who have been fighting and writing are tired of being the the few out of millions who seem to care.