PHARMACIST STEVE

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Mike Braun (R-IN) are still trying to address the fentanyl and heroin overdose crisis—soon to be joined by a methamphetamine and cocaine overdose crisis—by denying chronic pain patients access to pain relief. They have just introduced a bill they call The FDA Opioid Labeling Accuracy Act, which would “prohibit the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from allowing opioids to be labeled for intended use of ‘around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment’ until a study can be completed on the long-term use of opioids.”

Set aside the fact that most pain specialists agree that, in some cases, long-term opioid therapy is all that works for some chronic pain patients. The 2016 guidelines on opioid prescribing put forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have already been misinterpreted and misapplied by legislators and regulators, leading to forced and rapid tapering off of opioids in many chronic pain patients, causing many to resume lives immobilized by pain, and in many cases, seek relief in the black market or by suicide. It has gotten so bad that the CDC recently issued a “clarification” in April, reminding regulators that the guidelines were only meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive, and did not in any way mean to encourage the rapid tapering of patients on chronic opioids for pain management. Johns Hopkins bioethicist Travis Rieder, PhD delves deeply into this subject and relates his own experiences in his book, In Pain.

What the senators fail to recognize is that patients are not one-size-fits-all. Different patients respond to pain and to pain management differently. Their proposed legislation, if passed, will only serve to exacerbate the unnecessary suffering of patients in pain that the CDC is trying to undue with its guideline clarification.

Meanwhile, they should take a look at the government’s own numbers. The data show there is no correlation between the number of prescriptions written and the incidence of non-medical use of prescription opioids or prescription pain reliever use disorder. And less than 10 percent of opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017 involved prescription pain relievers unaccompanied by other drugs such as cocaine, heroin, alcohol, or fentanyl.

The continued war on patients by politicians and regulators will not get one IV heroin user to take the needle out of their arm. Senators Manchin and Braun need to recognize that the overdose crisis has been on a steady, exponential increase since the 1970s and shows no signs of stopping—and that its ultimate cause is drug prohibition. 

If they want to get serious about addressing the problem, they should switch their focus to harm reduction. A good way to start would be to repeal the “Crack House” statutes that prevent cities and states from establishing overdose prevention sites called “safe injection facilities.”