But then the Federal Inspectors came and cut people off from their 40mg oxycodone BID to nothing overnight.
Thus leaving legitimate pain patients without their medicine and looking on the black market for replacements. All through sheer over - reaction. I'm not contesting the fact there are over - prescribing doctors, but it's unwarranted to tar the whole profession with the same brush. Many physicians are paranoid about prescribing any opioids to anyone now, no matter how clearly medically indicated, for fear of legal repercussions.
Why do you think the owners of OxyContin filed for bankruptcy when their was a $4.6 billion case against them? They got caught.
Ever heard of striking a plea deal -?
Plenty court cases are settled that way because it's just less hassle and expense. Also what 'crime' exactly are they supposedly guilty of? Merely manufacturing the drug? The world has had oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin, since 1917 ffs !
But by some nefarious collaboration between the pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession, we're now all of a sudden gonna get everyone hooked on the stuff over just the past 30 years or so?
Also maybe look into this insane culture where US television advertises pharmaceutical drugs directly to consumers, leading patients to pester their doctors for XYZ medication 'cause "I seen it on the telly". This practice is ILLEGAL in every other country I know. In Germany where I'm from, the only legal way to place adverts for opiate-based pharmaceuticals (or any other ones for that matter) is in magazines aimed at medical professionals, which are subscription only and not on sale to the general public.
It's NOT 'abusers' as you so disparagingly term them
How is calling someone a drug abuser disparaging. It's stating a fact where it applies. I was a fucking drug abuser. (As in, my use negatively impacted my own life and that of others.) I make the distinction between use and abuse precisely because I also advocate for legalization, and the unthinking equation of ANY use of ANY currently illegal substance being 'abuse' by default greatly hinders that argument. And no, I would not call a pain patient who is forced to resort to illicit sources for their pain relief an abuser.
who took their medication as instructed (which will breed physical dependence in every one of them) who went on to be 'addicts' and was simply discarded
Look at the study of A. Lindesmith all the way back in the 50s, who observed that in order to take on the 'addict' persona and come to understand themselves as addicts, an individual had to consciously link their withdrawal symptoms to the absence of the drug. Your average post - surgery patient throughout recent history, given large intravenous doses of morphine over a protracted period of time, then abruptly taken off and discharged when the medication was no longer needed, merely thought he'd caught some sickness when he withdrew from the morphine. He didn't feel compelled to run out to acquire more of the drug because he never made that mental connection. These days by contrast, we're practically TEACHING people 'addiction' .
The term 'opioid' covers codeine - which is the VAST majority of prescriptions so *whoa*, no surprise that they didn't end up failing but look a bit closer at the actual opioids involved.... and of ALL opioids, oxycodone is (was) the most overprescribed.
Refer you back to what I said above.
But why else did over 100,000 people die last year? What is your alternative hypothesis?
The vast majority of 'opioid' overdoses are not due to consumption of an opioid alone. According to the HAMS harm reduction survey, over 90% of fatal overdoses involved mixing an opioid with another sedative, such as alcohol or benzos. But if the toxicology report finds a single trace of an opioid, the death will invariably be chalked up to that.
I have no need for a 'hypothesis' in this matter. There's documented studies that anyone may consult.
I see your keen to knock others views, but see no evidence of any alternative explanation?
Excuse me? Yes I will argue the point if I disagree on the subject in question. But I don't just pull my arguments out of my arse at random, as you seem to be implying. I base my position on creditable statistics (I'm a researcher) and to a lesser degree on personal experience.
Oh, and BTW Gainsaying isn't argument - it's automatically taking a contrary position.
Again , that's not what I'm doing. I am not contradicting you for the mere purpose of contradicting you. Fine, let's slap you round the face with a couple more of those statistics:
80% of those who abuse (ie non-medical use) prescription opiates ARE NOT given them by any doctor, but acquire them from friends, steal them from family members, or buy them on the street.
70% of those who abuse prescription opiates were found to have a history of previous cocaine or meth use, that's to say were already far beyond any harmless experimentation with alcohol or cannabis when they got into opiates.
The 2012 Cochrane analysis puts the addiction rate of pain patients on opiates at 1-2%.
The 2018 Harvard survey found 'opiate naive' patients after 8 years of opiate treatment for chronic conditions to have only a 0.6% rate of misuse.
For the record, I'm the son of a doctor and I am sick and tired of the lazy way in which doctors, who for the most part are trying to help people to the best of their ability, are being made into collective scapegoats in this issue.
To sum up, OVER THREE QUARTERS of prescription opiate abusers receive their supply from sources OTHER than doctors.
Let's also not forget the way an addict will lie, cheat and connive to ensure his next fix. I've forged doctor's signatures, stolen prescription pads, had 50 different sob stories at the ready for every pharmacy and every emergency department within a 30 mile radius to convince them I absolutely HAD to have potent opiates and nothing else would do. If anything I made a single-handed net contribution to doctors UNDERprescribing opiates. And now we're to blame the doctors for that kind of behaviour -? The doc is at fault because I successfully conned him??
Whatever happened to personal agency and responsibility?! I did some lowlife desperate shit at the height of my addiction, fuck knows, but I'm pretty damn sure NOBODY ever tied me down and injected me with a fuckload of gear AGAINST MY OWN DAMN WILL.
.. Ah, but I have to remember the reason I'm a heroin junkie is because I once got given some codeine cough drops.
