Part 1 of 2

Traditionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others have included synthetic opioid deaths in estimates of “prescription” opioid deaths. However, with [fentanyl] likely being involved more recently, estimating prescription opioid–involved deaths with the inclusion of synthetic opioid– involved deaths could significantly inflate estimates.

When so-called professionals who act like amateurs screw up public health policy, things become decidedly less funny. Especially for the many victims of political and bureaucratic incompetence and the opportunists who have managed to elevate themselves to sufficiently lofty positions where they actually have enough power to do damage.

If you've been paying attention to the nationwide narcotic catastrophe that is now claiming 142 lives every day (and seems to be getting worse), you may be shaking your head in disbelief. If so, it is not without reason. The idea that slapping three-day caps on Vicodin and Percocet prescriptions will in any way decrease overdose deaths is so supernaturally stupid that no one could really believe this nonsense anymore, right? No, wrong.

So much so that there are now 17 states that have passed laws limiting the number of days of opioid prescriptions, the total number of pills, and the maximum dose, with the goal of putting the breaks on an unprecedented epidemic of overdose deaths. How's that working out? Exactly as you would predict—terribly.

Opioid addictions began to accelerate around 1996 when OxyContin hit the scene and fraudulently markets to General M.D.s….Physicians and pain patients did NOT start the so-called epidemic. And denying pain management to people in agony won't help stop it. Stop the Insanity!

#1. Today's opioid overdose crisis began in force in 2010, in what was a quintessential example of the law of unintended consequences. After years of research, Purdue Pharma finally discovered a new formulation for OxyContin—a significant driver of opioid addiction since its introduction in 1996.

There is a clear inverse relationship between the availability of abusable OxyContin and the subsequent mad rush to heroin—a fact that the press, the CDC, and many politicians either don't understand or, choose to ignore.

As OxyContin use dropped (left) heroin overdose deaths soared (right). This relationship is indisputable. Although pre-2010 OxyContin played a significant part in creating a huge population of opioid addicts, it could be argued that the improvement of the pill inadvertently did even more damage. Addicts could no longer get the pure oxycodone they needed and promptly switched to heroin.

Between 2010-2015 opioid overdose deaths in the US increased by 65%, roughly 13,000. And even a cursory examination shows that increase was entirely due to injectable drugs like heroin or fentanyl.

The increase in opioid deaths from 2010-2015. The 65% increase in deaths arose from heroin and fentanyl, not pills. Overdose deaths from pills remained unchanged during that time.

This fallacy of an opioid epidemic and restrictions are causing great harm to chronic pain patients.

#2. States Crack Down On Pills To Fight Fentanyl. Insanity! Heroin is cheaper than pills. The street value of opioid pills ranges from $5 to $80. A bag of heroin is about $5.

#3. Rescheduling 90% of the opioids to a higher level by PROP. How did they gain this much power in Obama Administration & currently? Nor are they qualified.

The medications, which are killing people are not opioids, or restricted prescription drugs or even unrestricted drugs. *They are ALL drugs. Including OTC (Advil, Aleve) and prescription (indomethacin, diclofenac) non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Although estimates of annual deaths from NSAIDs vary widely they are significant: 3,000-16,000 deaths per year.*

Were OTC medications included in order to skew the results? The CDC and PROP have used this trick over and over again; it works…but to benefit whom??? Follow the big money.

#4. DEA went after Physicians, instead of drug dealers on the street.

#5. Huge profits for rehab drugs, rehab facilities, Pain Specialists & Pain Clinics.

#6. Big Pharma pushing their brands of pot…Limit the supply of RX opioids to increase the demand for Big Pharma's Pot…

#7. "Illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids — primarily sourced from China and Mexico—are now the most lethal category of opioids used in the United States."

https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/08/16/heads-sand-%E2%80%94-real-cause-todays-opioid-deaths-11681

https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/11/05/who-telling-truth-about-prescription-opioid-deaths-dea-cdc-neither-13569

>>5118392

Part 2 of 2

FACT: The harder it becomes to get pills, the more people flock to heroin and fentanyl.

The Department of Health in Ohio — which has the highest number of opioid deaths in the nation — reported in 2015 that more than 80 percent of opioid deaths arose from heroin or fentanyl, up from 20 percent in 2010. Health agencies in Florida and Massachusetts report similar trends. It’s now indisputable that most recent opioid deaths result from heroin/fentanyl, not pain pills.

The other ignored horror of the equation is the cruel and needless suffering inflicted on blameless Americans who can no longer easily get pain medications. Just as addicts will do almost anything to feed their addiction, people in severe pain will do what is needed to escape it — even suicide.

But perhaps nothing illustrates the folly of government policies better than the rising number of pain sufferers who turn to street heroin because they can no longer get legal medication. What a travesty.

https://nypost.com/2016/12/19/how-the-feds-are-fueling-americas-opioid-disaster/

We also learn from the CDC data that the demographics of chronic pain and of overdose mortality are almost entirely different. The "over-prescribing" narrative doesn't work and never did. If prescribing was contributing to overdose deaths, we would expect to see higher mortality in age groups that receive more prescriptions. But there is no such trend.

In the past 17 years, death rates in youth and young adults have skyrocketed while opioid mortality in people over age 50 has remained stable at the lowest levels for any age group.

Moreover, the typical initiating substance abuser and the typical chronic pain patient are greatly different people. The typical abuser is a young male who has never seen a doctor, and who may have a history of mental health issues and family stress.

The typical chronic pain patient is a woman in her 40s or older. if her life is stable enough to see a doctor regularly, she will almost never be a substance abuser.

These trends are summarized and supported with graphics both here on ACSH and in an article in the June 21 edition of The Crime Report, titled "The Phony War Against Opioids - Some Inconvenient Truths". Readers can google the title to find the article.

Stop blaming doctors and their patients for causing it. Neither is guilty, despite the hype and misinformation we see in the MSM, Politicians, CDC (2018 Drug Threat Assessment of CDC), etc.

Government restriction of pain treatment (opioids) is driving doctors out of practice and people in agony into suicide.

Our mis-directed government's own statistics don't support the silly idea that our opioid addiction and mortality crisis is somehow dominated by prescription drugs.

It's not and it never has been.

It is easier to blame physicians for drug overdoses then to face the fact that most of the illegal fentanyl and heroin that enters the United States come up through the poorly protected Mexican border.

PROP, Makers of Oxycotin, CDC using in accurate numbers, Obama Adm., today's legislators are responsible for Thousands upon thousands of suicides and addicts over dosing on illegal fentanyl & heroin.

PROP is an acronym for Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing. The group, which consists of a bunch of self-anointed opioid experts anti-drug activists on steroids  played a significant part in putting together the execrable "CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain — United States, 2016," which is the basis for new laws and policies which are so bad that they have managed to kill more addicts while at the same time legitimate denying pain the medications they need to exist. 

Reviewers have rightly criticized PROP for using shoddy evidence in support of its findings. In the past decade, more than a dozen professional papers — including a systematic analysis known as a “Cochrane Review” of 26 other studies, and a 38-study review in the journal Pain — have debunked the idea that addiction routinely starts with legal use. In most cases, it doesn’t; people who use prescription opioids properly and legally rarely become addicts.

When in fact, the ones who become addicted are those who start off using opioids for recreational purposes. The next stop is street drugs.

The other ignored horror of the equation is the cruel and needless suffering inflicted on blameless Americans who can no longer easily get pain medications. Just as addicts will do almost anything to feed their addiction, people in severe pain will do what is needed to escape it — even suicide.

But perhaps nothing illustrates the folly of government policies better than the rising number of pain sufferers who turn to street heroin because they can no longer get legal medication. What a travesty.