Chronic pain is the number-one cause of long term disability in the United States and affects over 100 million Americans, more than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined.
Restricting, punishing, and prohibiting the prescribing of opioids in response to the opioid epidemic has worsened the under treatment of pain and caused morbidity and mortality in pain patients.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies (corporate and local), pharmacists, insurance companies, physicians, and patients all share fault in the current opioid epidemic and must cooperate in the ethical, humane and appropriate treatment of the diseases of addiction and pain.
Despite the Center for Disease Control advising against the misapplication of their guidelines for the prescribing of opioids for chronic pain, pharmacies and insurance companies are refusing valid opioid prescriptions for pain from licensed and certified prescribers without just cause or due process.
The proposed solution is a certification process linking all responsible parties in the treatment of pain and addiction along with regulations to end the baseless restrictions on prescriptions for chronic pain management.
Filed under: General Problems
This happened back in 2014, in New Mexico, and the state ignored it. Local media ran in content marketing about acupuncture and chiropractors at the same time. NM had a long running problem with heroin addicts even before the so called opioid crisis. No action was taken back in 2014, and now they allow the same corporations that benefited from the lawlessness, and greed to provide “opiate education” to schoolchildren. The so called opioid epidemic has been a good marketing and PR tool.
Nothing like the fear of opioids to sell products and increase market share.
I was intending to sign this petition, but it appears to be centered soley on helping pain patients in Ohio with the petition being intended for Ohio legislators. My reason for believing this is true is embedded in the URL, “the-fight-to-get-ohio-legislators-to-help-pain-patients-and-stop-baseless-refusals-of-valid-prescriptions”. There is no statement in the article stating who the petition will be sent to (e.g., Ohio State or Federal legislators). Since I am a cpp living in AK, I felt that it would not be appropriate for me to sign the petition.
Also, as stated in the comment by “ginapa”, I too had a problem with the 3rd paragraph. First, it is seriously questionable to me that a “opioid epidemic” even exists, given the statements by the CDC about how inaccurate their data is, and how they have significantly over estimated deaths due to opioids. There is no solid evidence that the entities listed (“pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, …pharmacists, insurance companies, physicians, and patients”) share any significant role in creating an “opioid” crisis. I would accept that we have a poly-pharmacy crisis fueled by illicit Heroine, carfentanyl, Methamphetamine, and (of course) Alcohol.
To blame this “crisis” on a pill used to legitimately treat suffering pain patients is ridiculous. The only reason this is being done (besides the money going into some people’s pockets) is that it is easier to blame the opioid pill (and try to restrict/limit its availability) than to address the much more complex issues underlying the true causes of addiction. Legislators (and the news media) have come to the incorrect conclusion that limiting the availability of opioid medications will limit the number of people addicted to drugs, and, in turn, will limit the number of overdose deaths. This may look good “on paper” and appease the general public that the government is fighting the “opioid crisis”, but in reality, it does nothing to help with addiction and the overdose deaths. Until we start implementing the principles of “Harm Reduction”, the current “crisis” situation will remain unsolvable with our current approach.
I have stated to a number of people (including doctors) the following analogy: A opioid pill does not cause addiction any more than a bottle of beer causes alcoholism. Those people have looked shocked and surprised that I would make such a statement. But, no one has yet told me any reason that this analogy is not valid.
Thanks for reading my long comment.
Good luck & heaven help us all. A DEA agent was on one of the news programs last night blaming the whole “epidemic” hysteria on, you guessed it, us. They have a serious proposal in congress where chronic pain patients be tatooed to prevent us from doctor shopping. + the new law on labeling changes. It’s like it will never end & we’re always to blame. I’m afraid we’re the casualties in this “war”. Like to see the government, DEA, do it’s job & go after the cartels for a change, but I guess that would be too dangerous for them. Seeing how it’s all so lucrative to sue big pharma & seize doctor’s assets. I’m so sick of the whole charade. I’m a poor woman but am actually researching moving to someplace like Portugal, where they still treat pain patients with dignity & not like junkies.
I love most of the article, although I’m not so sure about the third paragraph, considering pain patients and their doctors played such a small part in arriving at the current “opioid crisis.” We’re trying to fight the erroneous claim made by many who blame patients and physicians. I wish there was at least a sentence about that in the article.
There is no way that I was able to sign this! I tapped on the red, was taken to YouTube, tried to tap on the red on the video, NOTHING! I guess I could try typing out the red address, but too frustrated and in pain to try.
Good luck!
Here it is
https://www.change.org/p/join-the-fight-to-get-ohio-legislators-to-help-pain-patients-and-stop-baseless-refusals-of-valid-prescriptions?recruiter=508148837&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_abi&utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial&recruited_by_id=c4abb7b0-ea41-11e5-9fad-df74939b2408&share_bandit_exp=abi-17015546-en-US&share_bandit_var=v0&utm_content=fht-17015546-en-us%3Av6