Felonious Monk
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2013
- Messages
- 4,596
The prescription painkiller and heroin epidemic, explained
The drug epidemic currently tearing through large parts of the US began with the best intentions from doctors and a profit-driven campaign from pharmaceutical companies.
Back in the 1990s, doctors agreed — and most still do — that America has a serious pain problem: Tens of millions of Americans experienced debilitating pain, and it was left untreated. So they looked for a solution — and, fueled by a misleading marketing push from pharmaceutical companies, landed on opioid-based painkillers, widely known by brand names such as OxyContin, Percocet, and Vicodin. The drugs proliferated.
But this led to unintended, devastating results. Prescription painkiller abuse went up, and overdose deaths linked to the drugs did as well. Then as policymakers and doctors took notice of widespread painkiller abuse, they pulled back access to the drugs. But federal data now shows many of these addicts didn't just quit the drugs altogether — some instead moved to another opioid, heroin.
The result: In 2013, more than 16,200 deaths were linked to opioid painkillers, and another 8,200 were linked to heroin. That makes opioid painkillers the deadliest drug in America after tobacco and alcohol. And both painkillers and heroin made up more than half of all 44,000 drug overdose deaths, which now kill more people than AIDS did at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1990s.
It's a big public health crisis. And, surprisingly, policymakers are treating it as a public health crisis — whereas previous drug epidemics invited harsh tactics typical of the war on drugs, like increased prison sentences for drug possession, the current crisis is being handled as a problem that requires more access to treatment programs. That reflects not just the opioid epidemic's unique beginnings, but a general shift in how the country views the decades-old drug war.
Continued Here
I like how they claim the jump in heroin use/deaths was "unexpected." Yeah, to politicians and PP wonks unaware that the real world exists. I'm pretty sure even the CDC raised the alarm a few years ago, and users knew within a few months...
The drug epidemic currently tearing through large parts of the US began with the best intentions from doctors and a profit-driven campaign from pharmaceutical companies.
Back in the 1990s, doctors agreed — and most still do — that America has a serious pain problem: Tens of millions of Americans experienced debilitating pain, and it was left untreated. So they looked for a solution — and, fueled by a misleading marketing push from pharmaceutical companies, landed on opioid-based painkillers, widely known by brand names such as OxyContin, Percocet, and Vicodin. The drugs proliferated.
But this led to unintended, devastating results. Prescription painkiller abuse went up, and overdose deaths linked to the drugs did as well. Then as policymakers and doctors took notice of widespread painkiller abuse, they pulled back access to the drugs. But federal data now shows many of these addicts didn't just quit the drugs altogether — some instead moved to another opioid, heroin.
The result: In 2013, more than 16,200 deaths were linked to opioid painkillers, and another 8,200 were linked to heroin. That makes opioid painkillers the deadliest drug in America after tobacco and alcohol. And both painkillers and heroin made up more than half of all 44,000 drug overdose deaths, which now kill more people than AIDS did at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1990s.
It's a big public health crisis. And, surprisingly, policymakers are treating it as a public health crisis — whereas previous drug epidemics invited harsh tactics typical of the war on drugs, like increased prison sentences for drug possession, the current crisis is being handled as a problem that requires more access to treatment programs. That reflects not just the opioid epidemic's unique beginnings, but a general shift in how the country views the decades-old drug war.
Continued Here
I like how they claim the jump in heroin use/deaths was "unexpected." Yeah, to politicians and PP wonks unaware that the real world exists. I'm pretty sure even the CDC raised the alarm a few years ago, and users knew within a few months...