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1 of 1- Goose
- Cogito ergo sum
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- Registered: 1/29/2015
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The 50 State Epidemic
This is a really important article.
Inside a Killer Drug Epidemic: A Look at America’s Opioid Crisis
The opioid epidemic killed more than 33,000 people in 2015. What follows are stories of a national affliction that has swept the country, from cities on the West Coast to bedroom communities in the Northeast.
Opioid addiction is America’s 50-state epidemic. It courses along Interstate highways in the form of cheap smuggled heroin, and flows out of “pill mill” clinics where pain medicine is handed out like candy. It has ripped through New England towns, where people overdose in the aisles of dollar stores, and it has ravaged coal country, where addicts speed-dial the sole doctor in town licensed to prescribe a medication.
Public health officials have called the current opioid epidemic the worst drug crisis in American history, killing more than 33,000 people in 2015. Overdose deaths were nearly equal to the number of deaths from car crashes. In 2015, for the first time, deaths from heroin alone surpassed gun homicides.
And there’s no sign it’s letting up, a team of New York Times reporters found as they examined the epidemic on the ground in states across the country. From New England to “safe injection” areas in the Pacific Northwest, communities are searching for a way out of a problem that can feel inescapable.
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We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.
- Goose
- Cogito ergo sum
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Re: The 50 State Epidemic
Pennsylvania opioid addiction statistics are staggering
By Amy LeapPocono Record
Last year 3,505 people in Pennsylvania died from drug overdose - more than the number of people who died in car crashes.
"Pennsylvania is in the midst of a full-fledged epidemic. The prescription opioid and heroin crisis is the most significant public health crisis facing our state today," said Dr. Margaret Jarvis, the medical director at Geisinger Marworth Treatment Center.
Doctors wrote 240 million prescriptions for the opioid pain-killers xycodone, hydrocodone, meperidine, hydromorphone and propoxyphene in 2014.
In the same year 1,700 young adults died from prescription drug overdoses, and for every overdose death, 22 treatment admissions took place and 199 users ended up in an emergency room, according to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
The difference between opiates and opioids
Opiates: Morphine, codeine, heroin, opium
Opiates are alkaloids derived from the opium poppy. Opium is a strong pain relieving medication, and a number of drugs are also made from this source.
Opioids: Methadone, Percocet, Percodan, OxyContin, (oxycodone generic name), Vicodin, Lorcet, Lortab, (hydrocodone (generic name), Demerol (pethidine), Dilaudid (hydromorphone), Duragesic (fentanyl) are synthetic or partly-synthetic drugs that are manufactured to work in a similar way to opiates. Their active ingredients are made via chemical synthesis. Opioids act like opiates when taken for pain because they have similar molecules.
How opiates and opioids work
Both opiate and opioid drugs alter the way that pain is perceived, as opposed to making the pain go away. They attach onto molecules that protrude from certain nerve cells in the brain called opioid receptors. Once they are attached, the nerve cells send messages to the brain that are not accurate measures of the severity of the pain that the body is experiencing. Thus the person who has taken the drug experiences less pain.
Drugs in these classes also affect how the brain feels pleasure. A person who takes them who is not in pain will experience a feeling of elation, followed by deep relaxation and sleepiness.
Epidemic - how did happen?
For many years, opiate drugs were used for the treatment of acute severe pain following trauma, extensive burns or surgery, as well as for patients with painful terminal diseases such as cancer.
"But, somehow, in the early '90s things shifted from helping patients manage chronic pain through medicine and alternative therapies, such as physical therapy, biofeedback and exercise or mediation, to mainly writing prescriptions for pain medicines," said Dr. Michael A. Evans, the associate vice president of strategy and innovation at Geisinger Health System and co-director of the Center for Pharmacy Innovation and Outcomes.
Last edited by Goose (1/06/2017 3:14 pm)
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.
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Thread Starter- Goose
- Cogito ergo sum
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- Posts: 13,427
Re: The 50 State Epidemic
Goose wrote:
Epidemic - how did happen?
For many years, opiate drugs were used for the treatment of acute severe pain following trauma, extensive burns or surgery, as well as for patients with painful terminal diseases such as cancer.
"But, somehow, in the early '90s things shifted from helping patients manage chronic pain through medicine and alternative therapies, such as physical therapy, biofeedback and exercise or mediation, to mainly writing prescriptions for pain medicines," said Dr. Michael A. Evans, the associate vice president of strategy and innovation at Geisinger Health System and co-director of the Center for Pharmacy Innovation and Outcomes.
Dr Evans' explanation is woefully inadequate.
There was a perception that doctors under treated pain. So, Pain was first recognized as the fifth vital sign in the 1990's, giving pain equal status with blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature as vital signs. The policy encourages healthcare providers to ask patients about their pain.
At the same time drug companies were aggressively marketing powerful synthetic opiates which had previously been reserved for cancer pain for chronic pain, and even pain after minor surgery. Regulatory bodies such as JACOH encouraged aggressive treatment of pain with opiates. Hospital satisfaction surveys asked about how aggressively treated pain was, and even based the pay of employed physicians on these surveys. Medicare got into the act, basing payment on those surveys as well.
As a result the prescription of opiates skyrocketed. Over the last ten years enough opiates were prescribed in West Virginia to provide 435 pills to each man woman and child in the state.
Of course, diversion theft and abuse became rampant.
But critics say pain is not a vital sign, but more of a symptom, and cannot be measured like a patient's temperature or blood pressure. They also claim The Joint Commission, a non-profit that accredits hospitals and other U.S. healthcare organizations, sets pain management standards too high, which contributes to opioid overprescribing.
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.
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Thread Starter