Opoiod Painkillers

[Disir]

There is a current little battle between Endo and the FDA. Endo changed the coating of Opana so that it couldn't be crushed and snorted. So, users figured out a way around that and they inject it. It's been a huge problem in places like southern Indiana
From 2012:
Painkiller Opana, new scourge of rural America

So, all of a sudden there was a huge increase in new HIV and Hep 3 cases. Then they instituted a temporary needle exchange program. A day late and a dollar short but
that's Pence for ya.
How the Scott County, Indiana, Needle Exchange Program Works

I don't think people that have chronic pain should be forced to do without painkillers because you have this group over here (or Texas or Kentucky or New York etc.) abusing them.
We need consistent needle exchange programs nation wide and safe injection sites. Many women (and men) that are addicted are prostituting. They are not giving a thought to dirty needles and they sure are not thinking about getting pregnant.

And they can spend years not getting popped for drugs but they are some thieving little bastards.

 

[chikenwing]

That what a lot of people don't understand...

... painkillers are not like antibiotics...

... you only take painkillers AS NEEDED for pain...

... once the pain subsides - stop using them...

... too many people keep using them even if there is just a twinge of pain...

... this doesn't apply to those with chronic pain...

... common sense is the best approach.

The best way to manage chronic pain is to stick to a set schedule that works without over use. Keeping comfort on an even keel, no ups and downs.

 

[waltky]

Odyssey House helps fight painkiller, opioid addiction...

Hospital in New Jersey fighting US opioid crisis
Thu, Jul 28, 2016 - PAINKILLERS: With 14,000 people dying of opioid abuse in 2014, St Joseph’s medical center is seeking to change prescription habits and patient management

Opioid abuse has turned into a public health crisis in the US, blamed for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. However, one hospital is determined to reverse the epidemic. Since January, St Joseph’s Regional Medical Center, which boasts the largest emergency room in New Jersey, has stopped prescribing opioid painkillers in all but essential cases, slashing overall use by more than 40 percent. While these powerful drugs are an “excellent” medication for terminal cancer patients or those with a broken leg, for the vast majority there are far safer courses of treatment, emergency medicine chief Mark Rosenberg said. “In our first 60 days, we were absolutely shocked,” Rosenberg said. “We had 300 patients and out of those 75 percent of them did not need opioids.” “It’s just a remarkable change of our prescribing habits and our management of patients’ acute pain,” he added.

In 2014, 14,000 people died from an opioid overdose in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 1999, these powerful painkillers have caused 165,000 deaths. The problem dates back to the 1990s, but critics accuse US President Barack Obama of being slow to respond to the scale of the epidemic, comparing his delayed reaction to former US president Ronald Reagan’s sluggish response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Back in the mid-1990s, drug companies, professionals and authorities promoted opiates as a compassionate medicine that would end pain and minimized concerns that they were addictive. “It led to the epidemic that we’re dealing with today,” said Andrew Kolodny, chief medical officer at Phoenix House Foundation, which treats addiction, and executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing.

Clean for three months, former heroin addict Erik Jacobsen, 24, is determined to turn his life around after getting hooked on the class A narcotic. It all began when he popped a quarter of one of his grandfather’s painkillers to impress a girl he fancied. “She was using it,” he said at Odyssey House, a treatment center in New York’s East Village. “That’s why I got into it.” He never tried to get them legally from a doctor. He did not have to; they were so easy to buy on the street in Gordon Heights, a hamlet an hour’s drive from celebrity summer resort the Hamptons on Long Island. “There were so many kids that would get 200 pills a month and they’d sell it, and then they’d still owe their dealers because they were using more than they were selling. It would just be an endless cycle,” he said.

That was until local authorities realized there was a problem. Doctors clamped down on prescriptions and the police got involved. “There was one night I couldn’t find any pills. So I tried heroin and from there, I never went back,” Jacobsen said. He knew three people who died of an overdose, including a close friend. “I just kind of accepted the possibility that one day I might die,” he said. “It’s horrible ... It’s just crazy what it does to your body.” He got help when he was arrested and hauled before a judge, who ordered him to enter a treatment program or go to jail. He likes Odyssey House and their approach, but he is full of regret. “I lost everything,” he said. Experts say the opioid epidemic is a white problem. While heroin use is on the decline in inner city New York, painkillers are most abused in suburbs and rural areas — generally wealthier, whiter areas.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Opioid Addiction in US Afflicts All Ages...

Opioid Epidemic in US Also Hitting Children, Teens
November 01, 2016 - Children and teens are not immune to the opioid epidemic sweeping the United States. A new study from the Yale University School of Medicine reveals opioid poisoning among children has doubled in recent years.

The study, which was published in JAMA Pediatrics, examined hospital discharge records during a 16-year period from 1997 to 2012. They found the biggest surge in poisonings was seen among toddlers ages one to four, with rates rising twofold. Teens aged 15 to 19 were the most hospitalized among the ages studied.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Julie Gaither said in light of the findings, adults should be careful to prevent their kids from accessing the pills. "Opioids are ubiquitous now," said Julie Gaither, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale School of Public Health and the study's lead author in an interview with NPR. "Enough opioids are prescribed every year to put a bottle of painkillers in every household. They're everywhere, and kids are getting into them."

She added that opioids are found in 289 million American homes. "They're either finding medications on the floor, countertop [or] in their mother's purse," Gaither told Fox News. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioid overdoses killed more than 28,000 people in the United States in 2014. About half of them involved prescription opioids.

Opioid Epidemic in US Also Hitting Children, Teens

 

[gipper]

Opioid Addiction in US Afflicts All Ages...

Opioid Epidemic in US Also Hitting Children, Teens
November 01, 2016 - Children and teens are not immune to the opioid epidemic sweeping the United States. A new study from the Yale University School of Medicine reveals opioid poisoning among children has doubled in recent years.

The study, which was published in JAMA Pediatrics, examined hospital discharge records during a 16-year period from 1997 to 2012. They found the biggest surge in poisonings was seen among toddlers ages one to four, with rates rising twofold. Teens aged 15 to 19 were the most hospitalized among the ages studied.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Julie Gaither said in light of the findings, adults should be careful to prevent their kids from accessing the pills. "Opioids are ubiquitous now," said Julie Gaither, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale School of Public Health and the study's lead author in an interview with NPR. "Enough opioids are prescribed every year to put a bottle of painkillers in every household. They're everywhere, and kids are getting into them."

She added that opioids are found in 289 million American homes. "They're either finding medications on the floor, countertop [or] in their mother's purse," Gaither told Fox News. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioid overdoses killed more than 28,000 people in the United States in 2014. About half of them involved prescription opioids.

Opioid Epidemic in US Also Hitting Children, Teens

The opioid epidemic is a good example of crony capitalism. The government and big pharma are colluding to screw millions of Americans. The FDA is a shill for big pharma...politicians love big pharma for all the money they give...the TV networks love big pharma for the hundreds of millions of advertising dollars. It is all a scam and millions of Americans are caught up in it.

Some Americans think their government is protecting them, when clearly it is not.

 

[waltky]

Gipper wrote: The opioid epidemic is a good example of crony capitalism.

Actually, drug abuse can be found in all economic systems.

 

[waltky]

Opioid dispenser get prison time...

New York pharmacy owner gets prison for massive opioid pill scheme
November 29, 2016 - The owner of two now-defunct New York City pharmacies was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday for engaging in what authorities have called one of the largest opioid painkiller diversion schemes ever uncovered in the city.

Lilian Jakacki, the pharmacies' owner, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, who cited the nation's growing opioid drug epidemic as one factor he considered in imposing the prison term. "It was a crime carried on for too long at too high of a level," Rakoff said. Prosecutors said Jakacki, 50, and her husband, Marcin, illegally distributed more than 500,000 oxycodone pills. The heavily-regulated painkiller has enormous cash value to drug dealers and is abused by over 13 million Americans annually. Marcin Jakacki pleaded guilty in July in connection with the case. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday.

The couple ran the scheme out of two pharmacies in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens called Chopin Chemists, from 2010 to 2015, and illegally distributed pills with a street value of $10 million to $15 million, prosecutors said. During the scheme, Jakacki's small Brooklyn pharmacy from 2010 to 2012 became the leading purchaser of oxycodone tablets in its zip code, which included two national chain stores, prosecutors said. A 2013 U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration audit of the pharmacies found that hundreds of thousands of oxycodone tablets were dispensed without prescriptions, prosecutors said.

Tens of thousands more were distributed based on fraudulent prescriptions, some of which were made out to the names of luxury brands like "Chanel" or "Coach," prosecutors said. Jakacki, a licensed pharmacist, laundered the proceeds through the purchase of a $2 million home in Greenwich, Connecticut, prosecutors said. She also used her business to defraud Medicare out of more than $500,000 through an overbilling scheme, they said.

Jakacki pleaded guilty in July to charges including conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. In court on Tuesday, she apologized for her actions, saying she realized she made a "terrible mistake" that may have resulted in her customers being hurt by distributing oxycodone pills without prescriptions. "I became part of the problem," she said.

New York pharmacy owner gets prison for massive opioid pill scheme