White House Panel Recommends Declaring National Emergency on Opioids

[Louis1895]

“With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to Sept. 11 every three weeks,” the commission members wrote, referring to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/health/opioid-crisis-trump-commission.html?_r=0

Check out the graphs in this article to see how bad things really are:

Drug Deaths in America Are Rising Faster Than Ever

[Shrike47]

1. I take one hydrocodone a day and have for 15 years. Now they'll take that away.

Maybe they should do something about the pain people are in.

[BigmanPigman]

2. Meanwhile people who need painkillers are being denied them!

I have heard this from others besides myself. When people are having painful surgeries the doctors are so afraid of addiction they are prescribing less than they used to 10 years ago for the same procedures. A typical example is my 75 year old friend who had gum surgery and her dentist admitted she needed more medication than he prescribed but still wouldn't prescribe meds for two additional days to reduce the suffering he believed she was actually experiencing.

[Fresh_Start]

3. we have a national emergency on gun violence too

so be generous and make two national emergency declarations

[Chakaconcarne]

4. In other countries, you can't get even opioids unless you are inpatient.

They get released on Ibuprofen or Tylenol...

Somehow they manage.

There is balance to be had between their situation and ours.

[Coventina]

9. Not true. Codeine is sold over the counter in many countries.

I'm already at the maximum prescription dosage of ibuprofen for my arthritis.

What happens if I break my leg?

[Brother Buzz]

5. The drug dealers are saying, "Bring it on"

First of all, they want to thank the doctors and pharmaceutical industry for creating all these new potential customers, then the Government for creating the shortage of legal synthetic opiates. Supply and demand, baby, now they can raise their price on smack and make a real killing.

[tymorial]

6. The opioid crisis is just another "tough on crime" mantra used by politicians for political currency

The fact that people with chronic pain are harmed by these laws has been well discussed by others so I am not going to focus on that. It is a fair and valid point but I want to address those individuals for whom these laws target; addicts. I write target because they certainly do not help.

I speak from experience when I state that an addict is only going to get clean when they are ready to get clean. These laws largely address supply and access to opioids. When our supply and/or access is cut off the first thing we do is find another means to obtain our fix. Sure, we may suffer for a few days while we work it out. Maybe we substitute with something else in the meantime but by no means are we actually considering getting clean simply because we can't obtain our prescription online anymore. We're not going to just decide to get clean because physicians can only prescribe a week's worth of pills now. We're not going to just decide to get clean because the DEA changed the schedule of drugs that could be obtained online with ease... We didn't get clean 10 years ago when you could log into numerous websites and order 300 Vicodin using a credit card and filling out an online form... no questions asked no speaking to anyone. If you did have to speak to someone, they just asked you what you wanted... your telephone drug dealer from Florida.

Those of us who were in the throws of addiction back then we didn't get clean because the laws changed and the DEA raided a bunch of storefronts next to Disney. Nope, we found something else or we switched to street drugs.

Heroin is rampant around the country in areas where it was less of an issue just a few years ago. Now why do you think that is? Heroin is not refined like pills. There are no safety mechanisms in place to ensure quality control and stable dosage. All of these people who are prevented from accessing their pills are turning to street drugs to feed their habit. Why? They aren't ready. No law is ever going to make an addict be ready to get clean. These laws might force them to do something that could cause them to be arrested but that isn't helping someone get clean. As soon as they are in prison, they'll just get what they need anyway.

There is little love in this country for addicts. I do understand. Before I was an addict, my life was on its way. I had a good job, an great relationship and a ton of friends. One day I fell down the side of a cliff while free climbing and needed surgery to repair the damage sustained from the impact. I can't explain to you just how complete my life felt when I took the Vicodin prescribed. All of the good in my life just seemed better and the shitty parts of my past that haunted me didn't matter. That was it folks, I was hooked and I was going to keep taking it. I got it online, I got it from doctors. When I couldn't function anymore and lost my job and wife, I still used. I wasn't ready. I lost my access to drugs so I switched to something else and drank myself into oblivion. It went on like that for several years. I eventually came out the other side but not after being homeless and losing just about everything that ever mattered to me. My 20s were wasted.

I'm clean now and have been for 11 years but my story is not unique. It is being experienced by millions of people who have it far worse than I because they aren't ready. They will turn to street drugs and it WILL kill them. Trust me, I know. I went there and it took nearly dying (seriously, I was right there) to find my bottom.

I do feel for the people in pain who need opioids. I am sorry that these laws cause you to suffer and I recognize that many hate addicts because our behavior and addiction cause you more suffering. I do get that. This post wasn't for you. You have a lot of advocates speaking for you but addicts have far less... these laws aren't for us. They are for everyone else to feel good about doing something to end "drug abuse." Its horseshit.

[loyalsister]

11. What do you think of the possibility of maintaining addiction safely?

Do you think it's possible to have a program that focuses more on safety than abstention? Like providing addiction treatment centers that are similar to pain clinics where dosages are monitored and the drugs are provided safely. Suppose such an entity existed with social and medical supports to attend to the personal and environmental factors driving the addiction.

I think demonizing people who develop addictions has been a terrible way to treat people. Surely we can be more compassionate so that more people can come out on the other side and build lives they want to live.

[tymorial]

15. There will always be those who are desperate for a way out

Or at least a means to maintain meaning they use to keep from feeling bad. Many in that boat are still chasing a good high but they're using to maintain. Others are addicts who are consumed with getting that perfect high which never comes. Sometimes you get close but never like that first time. If you have never experienced it, you really cannot understand the mindset, the obsessive compulsive need... the best drug counselors are those who have been there and come out. I am still an addict to this day and I will always be. I help others now who want help but they have to want it. They have to want it more than anything in the world and will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

To this day I know that my addiction wants me dead. It wants me to take that drink or take that pill. To raid the drug cabinets of friends and family for pills. To give in just one time to get that feeling once more. Hell it's just one time right? Bullshit. There is no one time. Not for us if I use I will be back to whoever trying to get pills or H. Whatever.

Those places you describe might be a means to maintain but we have methadone clinics to keep people from using. Many never go in

[Motownman78]

12. I got a question

if you were prescribed legally at low cost 90 mg of Vicodin a day, would your life gone downhill in your 20's?

[tymorial]

14. Yup.

It's not about the dosage it's about getting high. It's also about what you do to yourselves and everyone around you in pursuit of that goal

[Motownman78]

16. Ok, because what Portugal and

other European countries do is give their addicts a set amount of legal, low cost daily dose of up to 500 mg of Grade A Heroin and noone is really dieing over there. I was just wondering if you had access like that would have kept your life intact. Maybe Americans just like to keep chasing a higher "high"?

[no_hypocrisy]

7. When there's an emergency for a small faction of our society,

the rest of us lose our civil liberties.

[Coventina]

8. And those of us with chronic pain will be the only ones without access

to cheap, effective pain relief.

[MiddleClass]

10. All while White House supported cutting the funding to combat opioids. Medicaid Obama care

Both programs funded states response special addiction clinics.

Republican hypocrisy, at least they're consistent

[Barack_America]

13. As an MD, I don't necessarily disagree with this.

We really need to start rethinking our use of opioids.