Letter to the editor: Pain meds not to blame for opioid crisis
I strongly disagree that the opioid crisis was caused by legal over-prescribing by physicians, due to misleading marketing.
I am a soon-to-retire criminal attorney and have represented close to 100 heroin addicts. I can’t even think of one addict whose addiction began with a legal prescription. Most simply purchased Oxycontin on the street, and then switched to heroin. They took opioids because they wanted to feel good. I do feel addiction must be treated as a public health crisis, but the theory of liability is a big lie.
The problem with the theory that addiction begins with legal prescriptions is that now people who really have chronic pain, and sometimes depression, cannot get a legal prescription or they have to beg. It is no doubt convenient to blame a deep pocket to hopefully fund addiction programs. Politicians and many self-righteous physicians have no empathy for people, especially elderly people whose lives are made functional with opioids. They just want to go with the hysteria and cover their butt.
This same hysteria is now being directed also toward vaping. It is almost certain that people getting ill from vaping were using knockoffs with THC. Of course the physicians and politicians have little empathy for those who depend on vaping to stop smoking.
Thankfully Maine has not yet followed Massachusetts in banning the sale of all vaping devices. We’ll see.
In the meantime, elderly people who need opioids should not have to beg a provider for a prescription.
Larry Goodglass
Princeton
I think that “over prescribing” is a mis-label …. but I do believe that there was some careless prescribing. There were some pts who were given an original opiate for a valid medical reason, but the pt kept request refills and the prescriber kept agreeing to them.. and then at some point in time.. the prescriber started paying attention and decided NO MORE OPIATES and of course the pt has become dependent and they go into cold turkey withdrawal. Most likely, the pt came to the conclusion and confirmed by their friends and relatives that they were “addicted to opiates “
These are the pts that are put in a abstinence rehab and are able to “come clean”.. because they were never truly addicted and if the prescriber had taken the time to ween the pt off the opiates that had been carelessly prescribed… would never had been labeled as a addict nor had to go thru rehab. That is way only 5%-10% of people going thru abstinence rehab are successful in getting and staying “clean”.
Of course, there were a number of prescribers throughout the country – especially in Florida – that were writing opiate/controlled substance Rxs that they knew or should have known or suspected were being diverted.
They are now mostly gone and the fact that the DEA is no longer seeking out “dead bodies” from practices to be the reason that they should raid and shut down a practice. Now, more and more… they are making determinations of how many controlled Rxs a prescriber is writing over a several year period and claiming that millions of doses prescribed to thousands of pts… defines the appropriateness of the prescriber’s overall practice in treating pts who have a valid medical necessity for controlled medications.
Filed under: General Problems
I don’t understand how people can blame their prescriptions for
Their addiction. If you have a problem with a drug, you are suppose to
Notify your Doctor immediately, that means if the drugs makes you high
Contact your Doctor. Opioids are suppose lessen your pain, dull your
Pain, not make you high.
I don’t believe Doctors we’re careless in giving out prescriptions, my Doctor made me take blood tests, xrays, etc. to see why I needed pain
Medication. I do believe that Pain Clinics, what I consider, high priced
Therapy Gyms, were the downfall for Chronic Pain Patients. Doctors,
who felt they could no longer help their patients sent them to Pain
Clinics.
I am a child of the 60’s, we had plenty of drugs, but we lived in a
World where people took responsibility for their own mistakes, we
didn’t the put the blame on someone else. The Government didn’t
Lie, the DEA got the drugs off the street and put the pushers in jail.
Doctors stood by their patients and protected their rights. The Media
didn’t make up stories circulated by the Government.
Chronic Pain Patients are dying because of their lies, The Government
Just doesn’t give a dam.
I was given Fentanyl back in 2004 by an Infectious Disease doc. I think he meant well but I should have never been given it. Later, I did have back surgery and they just increased the Fentanyl and I stayed on it until now. I am tapering off which is my choice. I suffer from Fibro- RSD- and Disc Disease. Started out at 25 MCG went to 50 MCG and now I am back down to 25MCG and hope to be off by Christmas thanks to a doctor who cared and listened to me. Plus I was ready….
Uh hu… So what are you doing in a forum where people are screaming for more safe and effective opiates used responsibly as Medicine at the top of their lungs?