Many of us know… and many of us don’t know the fact that our court system in 1917 determined that opiate addiction was NOT A DISEASE but a CRIME.
At that point, it became ILLEGAL for a prescriber to treat/maintain a addict. Bottom line… some attorneys decided that the mental health issue of addictive personality disorder, when it came to the addiction involved opiates, it was no longer a treatable disease.
We have spent since The Controlled substance Act of 1970 was enacted 1.5 Trillion in fighting the war on drugs and continue to spend 51 billion/yr on this nearly HALF-CENTURY WAR. There is actually a smaller per-cent of the population now abusing some substance other than the two drugs Alcohol and Nicotine, but we now have a full-fledged epidemic on our hands and we now have what seems like a “bum’s rush” to get Naloxone into just about everyone’s hand.. just in case…
Just think about it… reviving/saving a person from a opiate OD.. unless there is some sort of follow up therapy.. you just put them back into the environment they came from… how much good are you doing the person ? Epiphanies in the opiate addiction community are not all that common. Most are in a death spiral… I have heard of bureaucrats congratulating themselves on “saving the same person” .. TEN TIMES IN ONE DAY… are we actually “savings” these people or just postponing the inevitable outcome in their uncontrollable seeking a new/higher high ?
What happens if the bureaucrats/DEA decides to start looking into who is prescribing/selling Naloxone.. It is ILLEGAL to treat a addict… so if a prescriber writes a Rx for a pt taking a opiate – just in case – could the judicial system look at that as the prescriber knew or should have known they were treating an addict… and thus prescribing opiates for a non-medical reason… their own pt medical records will demonstrate that they are guilty.
Could the same hold true for Pharmacists that fill Naloxone Rxs and/or sell Naloxone OTC and/or standing order and/or via a collaborative agreement ? Even if the pt is only doing it as a precaution and never used the Naloxone to revive from an overdose.
The DEA has raided and taken down prescribers and pharmacies on a lot less sturdy/probably cause evidence.
Once that TROJAN HORSE is inside the gates… there is no UN-RINGING THAT BELL ?
Filed under: General Problems
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