poledriver
Bluelighter
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Prescription pain pills swapped for heroin causing addiction epidemic in the United States
THE United States is experiencing a heroin epidemic of unprecedented proportions and much of the blame falls at the feet of a once renegade pharmaceutical industry.
Opiate based pain killers became widely available in the US, particularly in the state of Florida in the late ‘90s after the drug OxyContin, known as “hillbilly heroin”, hit the market.
At roughly the same time, medical authorities urged doctors to pay greater attention to pain alleviation. As a result increasingly lax regulations around the drug meant it became readily and widely accessible, resulting in widespread abuse.
The award-winning 2009 documentary OxyContin Express showed the depths of the misuse and provided the impetus for a government crackdown on the trade and sale of the prescription drug. But the crackdown has resulted in what was apparently an unforeseen catastrophe by US policy makers.
The sudden difficulty for addicts to obtain the drug has led many to switch to the cheaper alternative of heroin — another opiate-based drug, albeit a much more dangerous one.
“The pills were hard to get. They got to be very expensive. Heroin is cheap,” Florida resident James Fata, 24, told The Guardian last month.
“Almost everyone that I was close to, anybody that was doing pills with me, typically they would at least get to the point where pills were not an option. You were either snorting heroin or shooting heroin.”
Opiate based drugs OxyContin and oxycodone are prescribed by doctors to manage acute, chronic and cancer-related pain. The effects of the drug on the body are similar to morphine and long term abuse can result in nausea, depression, cognitive impairment and possible brain damage.
A forthcoming episode of Vice on HBO, due to air this weekend in the US, delves into the emerging “heroin crisis” facing the country in the wake of the crackdown on pain killer medicines.
“I don’t think the medical field realised what they were creating when pain medicine was invented,” a first responder told Vice filmmakers.
Heroin deaths in the US have more than tripled nationwide since 2010 and use has doubled among adults in what an academic described to Vice as “the worst addiction epidemic in the United States’ history.”
Given the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, such a statement could not be made lightly.
AUSTRALIA FOLLOWING A SIMILAR TRAJECTORY
The problem in America has been echoed at home as concerns have grown ever louder about Australia’s growing levels of prescription pain pill abuse.
Discussing the issue with news.com.au in September, clinical director at Melbourne’s Eastern Health Matthew Frei said; “we have now arrived at the same situation as America”.
“Our horse has bolted,” Dr Frei said referring to the prevalence of opiate-based prescription drugs in Australia. “It’s no longer a question of whether it’s a problem. It’s well entrenched now.”
The Australian Medical Association last year called prescription drug abuse a “national emergency”.
The Australian Drug Foundation has also warned that we’re heading down a similar path to the United States as heroin has made a terrifying comeback in recent years.
“We know that when people are dependent upon the prescription of opioid they can develop an addiction that goes beyond the pain management those drugs may have been originally prescribed for,” Australian Drug Foundation policy manager Geoff Munro told news.com.au in December.
“It is a trend we’re really concerned about because the overprescription of opioid leads to doctor shopping, people trying to get more drugs, and when that doesn’t work, then they turn to the streets and try and get another form of those drugs,” he said.
Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley has previously called for a national system to crackdown on people using multiple doctors to obtain prescription drugs. While in April, Victoria announced a $30 million pledge to crackdown on prescription drug shopping.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...s/news-story/e396db573aac4f167cb17925de0c69fd
THE United States is experiencing a heroin epidemic of unprecedented proportions and much of the blame falls at the feet of a once renegade pharmaceutical industry.
Opiate based pain killers became widely available in the US, particularly in the state of Florida in the late ‘90s after the drug OxyContin, known as “hillbilly heroin”, hit the market.
At roughly the same time, medical authorities urged doctors to pay greater attention to pain alleviation. As a result increasingly lax regulations around the drug meant it became readily and widely accessible, resulting in widespread abuse.
The award-winning 2009 documentary OxyContin Express showed the depths of the misuse and provided the impetus for a government crackdown on the trade and sale of the prescription drug. But the crackdown has resulted in what was apparently an unforeseen catastrophe by US policy makers.
The sudden difficulty for addicts to obtain the drug has led many to switch to the cheaper alternative of heroin — another opiate-based drug, albeit a much more dangerous one.
“The pills were hard to get. They got to be very expensive. Heroin is cheap,” Florida resident James Fata, 24, told The Guardian last month.
“Almost everyone that I was close to, anybody that was doing pills with me, typically they would at least get to the point where pills were not an option. You were either snorting heroin or shooting heroin.”
Opiate based drugs OxyContin and oxycodone are prescribed by doctors to manage acute, chronic and cancer-related pain. The effects of the drug on the body are similar to morphine and long term abuse can result in nausea, depression, cognitive impairment and possible brain damage.
A forthcoming episode of Vice on HBO, due to air this weekend in the US, delves into the emerging “heroin crisis” facing the country in the wake of the crackdown on pain killer medicines.
“I don’t think the medical field realised what they were creating when pain medicine was invented,” a first responder told Vice filmmakers.
Heroin deaths in the US have more than tripled nationwide since 2010 and use has doubled among adults in what an academic described to Vice as “the worst addiction epidemic in the United States’ history.”
Given the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, such a statement could not be made lightly.
AUSTRALIA FOLLOWING A SIMILAR TRAJECTORY
The problem in America has been echoed at home as concerns have grown ever louder about Australia’s growing levels of prescription pain pill abuse.
Discussing the issue with news.com.au in September, clinical director at Melbourne’s Eastern Health Matthew Frei said; “we have now arrived at the same situation as America”.
“Our horse has bolted,” Dr Frei said referring to the prevalence of opiate-based prescription drugs in Australia. “It’s no longer a question of whether it’s a problem. It’s well entrenched now.”
The Australian Medical Association last year called prescription drug abuse a “national emergency”.
The Australian Drug Foundation has also warned that we’re heading down a similar path to the United States as heroin has made a terrifying comeback in recent years.
“We know that when people are dependent upon the prescription of opioid they can develop an addiction that goes beyond the pain management those drugs may have been originally prescribed for,” Australian Drug Foundation policy manager Geoff Munro told news.com.au in December.
“It is a trend we’re really concerned about because the overprescription of opioid leads to doctor shopping, people trying to get more drugs, and when that doesn’t work, then they turn to the streets and try and get another form of those drugs,” he said.
Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley has previously called for a national system to crackdown on people using multiple doctors to obtain prescription drugs. While in April, Victoria announced a $30 million pledge to crackdown on prescription drug shopping.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...s/news-story/e396db573aac4f167cb17925de0c69fd
