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Trump Declaring National Emergency Over Opioids


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Over at Reason, Jacob Sullum does the work that the political class is either too idle, or  too nervous or too blinkered to do—and takes a look at what lies behind some of data surrounding today’s opioid crisis:

Sullum reports that the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis (motto: “We’re from the government and we’re here to help”) headed by Chris Christie has endorsed the idea that the current wave of opioid abuse began with “a growing compulsion to detect and treat pain.”

Sullum (my emphasis added):

Quote

[T] he narrative endorsed by the commission is wrong in several crucial ways. Doctors did not mistakenly believe that the dangers posed by opioids had been greatly exaggerated. They correctly believed that the dangers posed by opioids had been greatly exaggerated, and they were right to think that excessive fear of opioids had led to inadequate pain treatment.

Contrary to the impression left by a lot of the press coverage, opioid addiction and opioid-related deaths rarely involve drug-naive patients who accidentally get hooked while being treated for pain. They typically involve polydrug users with histories of substance abuse and psychological problems. Attempts to prevent overdoses by closing off access to legally produced narcotics make matters worse for both groups, depriving pain patients of the analgesics they need to make their lives livable while driving nonmedical users into a black market where the drugs are more variable and therefore more dangerous.


{snip}

 


Between 2010-2015 [annual] opioid overdose deaths in the US increased by 65%, roughly 13,000. And even a cursory examination of Figure 2 [You’ll have to follow the link to the whole piece to see the chart] shows that increase was entirely due to injectable drugs like heroin or fentanyl.

[W]hen you look at the characteristics of the people whose deaths were attributed to prescription opioids, you see that 61 percent had used illegal drugs, 80 percent had been hospitalized for substance abuse (including abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs as well as prescription medications), 56 percent had a history of mental illness, and 45 percent had been hospitalized for psychiatric reasons other than substance abuse…

The prescription guidelines that the CDC issued last year, which encourage physicians to be stingy with opioids, already have had a noticeable impact on patients’ ability to get adequate treatment for their pain.

 

And their suffering will do nothing to reduce the death toll from an opioid crisis that in its causes and consequences is far for more complex than the politicians and a panic-of-the-day media would like you to think.

 

But for Chris Christie, that’s fine.

 

He’s from the government and he’s here to help.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/453434/junk-science-presidential-commission-and-opioid-myths

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53 minutes ago, ALF said:

I wonder if legalizing marijuana would significantly cut drug use for opioids ,cocaine , crack , meth. 

 

Are you kidding?  Heroin and meth are way better than pot will ever be.

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28 minutes ago, ALF said:

 

More deadly , is it worth it ? I have no experience in this area , Coors Light is my weakness

 

There's nothing wrong with drinking water, it's good to keep yourself hydrated. You should try alcohol sometime, though.

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46 minutes ago, ALF said:

 

Very sad  , time to do something 

Like what?  Educate people that drugs are bad for them, perhaps a cleverly named program delivered by the President's bully pulpit?  Perhaps criminalize their possession, distribution, and use to provide additional incentives for abstaining?  Maybe we could go so far as to declare a "war" on their use?

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12 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

Like what?  Educate people that drugs are bad for them, perhaps a cleverly named program delivered by the President's bully pulpit?  Perhaps criminalize their possession, distribution, and use to provide additional incentives for abstaining?  Maybe we could go so far as to declare a "war" on their use?

 

Shooting anyone who distributes carfentanyl without a license would be a good start.

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