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Google partners with psychiatric drug front group to push mental illness “self diagnosis” tool that will generate more profits for Big Pharma

Changes in laws in obama care coverage of mental health created whooping lucrative profiteering now in the Psych field, Psychiatric Pharmacology, Addition Psychiatry, etc.

Dr. Google , Dr. Facebook…

https://www.addiction.news/2017-09-29-google-partners-with-psychiatric-drug-front-group-to-push-mental-illness-self-diagnosis-tool-that-will-generate-more-profits-for-big-pharma.html

Paging Dr. Google

Paging Dr. Google

Paging Dr. Facebook

Google partners with psychiatric drug front group to push mental illness “self diagnosis” tool that will generate more profits for Big Pharma

Changes in laws in obama care coverage of mental health created whooping lucrative profiteering now in the Psych field, Psychiatric Pharmacology, Addition Psychiatry, etc.

Dr. Google , Dr. Facebook…

https://www.addiction.news/2017-09-29-google-partners-with-psychiatric-drug-front-group-to-push-mental-illness-self-diagnosis-tool-that-will-generate-more-profits-for-big-pharma.html

Investors See Big Opportunities In Opioid Addiction Treatment

Every fake crisis presents an huge $Multi-Billion money maker opportunity. Now a global cash cow. And when it comes to opioid addiction, investors and businesses are seeing a big opportunity in addiction treatment. Private equity firms or public companies bought or invested in addiction treatment centers and other so-called behavioral health companies in 2014 and 2015 alone.

The Mental Health Parity Act of 2008 requires insurers to cover mental health care as they would cover physical health care.

"Mental health parity was the beginning. We saw a big benefit. And then the Affordable Care Act was very positive for our industry," says Joey Jacobs, Acadia's CEO. He spoke at an investor conference last month.

Obamacare is driving their growth in part because so many more people have health insurance, and in particular because of a provision in the law that allows people up to age 26 to stay on their parents' insurance policies. That's the age of many opioid and heroin abusers.

Suddenly there's a huge stream of cash for Acadia and other companies to tap into.

***

But addiction is certainly a big part of the business. It has more than 100 inpatient detox and rehab centers and runs 110 opioid treatment programs, better known as methadone clinics, which it bought from private equity firm Bain Capital in 2014 for $1.18 billion.

Bain, which was founded by Mitt Romney, had purchased CRC Health, a chain of treatment centers, in 2005 for $720 million. It then bought at least 20 more rehab centers and then added a Massachusetts-based chain of methadone clinics in 2014 for $58 million, just before selling the entire package to Acadia.

investor conference, the company referred to the rising use of heroin as a "favorable industry tailwind" and predicted its revenue would continue to grow.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/10/480663056/investors-see-big-opportunities-in-opioid-addiction-treatment

How Big Pharma, Addiction Psychiatry & Wall Street Are Cashing in on Addiction Therapy Drugs & Rehab Centers: Substitute an Addiction (Opioid) for another more profitable and “literally hell to get off of” Addictive “So Called Treatment” Drug, in addition to a Psychiatric-Duel-Diagnosis needed for insurance and RX treatment can last a lifetime.~03/2016

Addiction psychiatry, is essentially treating drug addicts with even more addictive & expensive so called therapy drugs, has become a hugely profitable industry, over $35 Billion in 2014

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration projected the market for addiction treatment at about for $35 billion 2014.

Suboxone sells for $560 at CVS and $553 at Target for a 30-day supply, according to GoodRx.

Private Equity Firms have invested more than $2.2 billion in substance abuse treatment companies.

*“The insurance companies told the rehabs they would no longer pay for inpatient rehab for heroin, cocaine or alcohol unless there was also another Axis 1 psychiatric disorder like bipolar disorder or major depression,”. “ Since addicts typically complain of anxiety and depression, a completely understandable emotional response to their toxic lifestyles, it was no problem to add a new label and throw a few psychiatric drugs at their now relabeled ‘dual diagnosis.’””…the substance abuser never recovers, but simply stays hooked on another or multiple drugs, while Big Pharma cashes in.

Addiction treatment for life…Helping the increase in drug patient pools, in 2013 the American Psychiatric Association loosened the definitions of alcohol use disorders, eliminating “legal problems” but adding “craving.” (The APA’s financial links to Big Pharma have been widely reported.) The problem with the harm reduction/maintenance model is obvious; the substance abuser never recovers, but simply stays hooked on another or multiple drugs, while Big Pharma cashes in.

"Opioid maintenance drugs cause their own dependence and serious withdrawal states and other drugs used to treat alcoholism may blur the baseline mental status and delay recovery.”

For opioid addiction, buprenorpine, marketed as Suboxone, has been a success story for Pharma and Wall Street…and difficult to quit. So Big Pharma & Wall Street Profit by Substituting one addiction for another addiction at a higher cost (Suboxone sells for $560 at CVS and $553 at Target for a 30-day supply, according to GoodRx.), for life.

“The withdrawal is absolutely brutal and lasts from 30 days to months compared to 7 to 10 days for oxycodone or heroin acute withdrawal,” she says. Most people "go back to buying Suboxone legally or illegally because they cannot stand the cramps, sweats, diarrhea, no sleep, inability to regulate body temperature, depression, lethargy and no affect.”

Abuse of Suboxone has become an epidemic, like abuse of opioids and heroin. 2013 statistics "show sharp increases in buprenorphine seizures by law enforcement, in reports to poison centers, in emergency room visits for the nonmedical use of the drug and in pediatric hospitalizations for accidental ingestions," says the New York Times. Reckitt-Benckiser Pharmaceutics Inc, manufacturer of Subutex and Suboxone.

Many prescribers have checkered pasts. The Times article reports that in 2013, "Nationally, at least 1,350 of 12,780 buprenorphine doctors have been sanctioned for offenses that include excessive narcotics prescribing, insurance fraud, sexual misconduct and practicing medicine while impaired. Some have been suspended or arrested, leaving patients in the lurch."

addiction treatment companies so lucrative, with profit margins of over 20 percent? Largely because of the booming specialty of addiction psychiatry, which has exploded and muscled its way into standard rehabilitation and monetized it.

https://www.alternet.org/2016/03/how-big-pharma-cashing-addiction-alcohol-and-illicit-drugs/

SICKENING

New Laws Force Drug Users Into Rehab Against Their Will~2017

According to the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, 37 states already have statutes that allow substance abusers who have not committed a crime to be briefly detained against their will. In most cases the legal bar is high. Over the past several years, however, states have been quietly revising their laws to allow for longer periods of commitment with fewer legal hurdles….passing a new measure that allows individuals with substance abuse problems to be held up to 90 days against their will.

A petition can be filed by “any adult with direct personal observed knowledge of the respondent’s impairment,” and must only show probable cause that the individual has “lost the power of self-control with respect to substance abuse” and are “incapable of making a rational decision regarding his or her need for care.”

Democratic Assemblyman Joseph Lagana (Paramus), would allow a police officer with no addiction training to detain a person if they have “reasonable cause” to believe that the person is in need of involuntary treatment.

David Freed, district attorney for Cumberland County, Pennsylvania—where overdose fatalities doubled in 2016—supports the measure, and says states have a “moral obligation” to help drug addicts who he says won’t help themselves. The process should be seamless. It should be standard, and frankly, it should not be optional,” he testified last year.

Debra Hicks went to work on Sept. 19, 2011,… she got a crash course on how easily her own civil rights could be violated, when she overdosed on her pain pills and a psychiatrist she’d never met involuntary committed her to Glendale Adventist Medical Center, near Los Angeles.

Like millions of other Americans, Hicks suffers from chronic pain issues, including fibromyalgia—a painful nerve condition—three herniated disks and two pinched nerves.

Her treatment includes seeing a pain management specialist, and taking prescribed medications that include opioid painkillers.

According to a lawsuit she filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, on the day her ordeal began Hicks had forgotten to take her morning dose of painkillers….

Hicks’ roommate found her passed out on the floor of the apartment they shared and called 911.

Though she managed to walk to the ambulance that would take her to the emergency room, doctors there told Hicks that, as a matter of protocol, patients who have suffered a drug overdose must speak to a psychiatrist before being released.  

According to her lawsuit, Hicks waited nine hours after she was discharged from the emergency room before a nurse informed her she was being detained under a 1967 law that  gives psychiatrists in California limited powers to hold a person who is dangerous to themselves or others due to mental illness against their will for up to 14 days.

By the time she was released six days later, Hicks claims she had been placed in five-point restraints and “forcibly and unwillingly subjected to the use of strong antipsychotic medications”—according to an ongoing lawsuit against the facility.

Hospital records attached to Hicks’ lawsuit say her only formal diagnosis was “depression.” When Hicks attempted to leave the hospital—a full 24 hours after being released from the ER—she was chased down and brought back by local police and hospital security guards, she asserts in her complaint.

.

…under California’s civil commitment law—which requires only a finding of probable cause that an individual is a danger to themselves.

Her only “crime,” she says, was having a bad reaction to her doctor-prescribed opioid medication.

Meanwhile, detaining a person who has committed no crime based on what they might do in the future has potentially severe long-term repercussions.

“Involuntary commitment gives someone a lifelong marker that interferes with their ability to get health care coverage, own a firearm, and it could prevent them from getting certain jobs,

Once a civil commitment is on a person’s record, …it’s nearly impossible to get it expunged.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-laws-force-drug-users-into-rehab-against-their-will

President Obama’s War on Medical Marijuana?

Who is the worst president in U.S. history when it comes to medical marijuana?

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, the answer is Barack Obama.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/president-obamas-war-on-medical-marijuana/

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wrote a 2011 open letter that explains federal law on guns and marijuana. John Ham, public information officer with the ATF's Kansas City Field Division, said the mandates outlined in the letter still apply.

Anyone who is an "unlawful user of or addicted to" any controlled substance is prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition, the letter says.

"The actual language is there’s no exception under federal law for medicinal marijuana," Ham told the News-Leader Thursday morning. "That sums up the entire letter."

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2018/11/08/guns-and-medical-weed-you-cant-have-both-despite-amendment-2/1928401002/