Drug deaths now exceed traffic deaths in the USA

[MillCreek]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drugs-epidemic-20110918,0,5517691.story


A very interesting story about how deaths from abuse of prescription drugs now exceed deaths from traffic accidents.  This is in part due to improvements in traffic safety and in part due to more liberal prescribing of pain meds. 

Up here in the Pacific NW, the state medical boards of Oregon and Washington have really tightened up the rules on prescribing narcotics for chronic pain and your medical license is in jeopardy if you don't follow the rules.  Now, in many situations, a patient has to get a consult from a pain management specialist before chronic narcotics can be prescribed.  The problem with this is a lack of pain specialists, and that many of these patients are on welfare or workers' comp, and few pain management specialists take those insurances.  So a lot of doctors are dropping their chronic pain patients to avoid licensure problems.

There are the 'pill mills' and other shady medical settings that write these prescriptions, but I am sure concerned about the patients with legitimate chronic pain who are now not being adequately treated by the rank and file physician.  A real dilemma.

[Ned Hamford]

I vote for over the counter laudanum and a return to darwin for dealing with addictions.  Overnight an end on the war on some drugs and a shift to treatment over prosecution. 

Also, I'd be able to get myself some effective pain management for my back which I strained the other day.  An injection of morphine seems about right... 

[vaskidmark]

Decent pain management does not expose the patient to any increased danger of overdose.

Ineffective pain management, on the other hand, carries with it a significantly higher risk of overdose.  What you describe as happening in the PNW is seriously ineffective pain management and contributes to both overdose and illegal drug use.

I have been fortunate that my chronic pain episodes took place before the great push to regulate the daylights out of doctors and patients.  I was told I might experience addiction/dependency but managed to avoid it because my pain was properly managed and I was put through a proper tapering off regiem as opposed to being taken off cold turkey.  If my back goes out again I'd probably consider blowing out my brains before trying to get into a pain management program.

Doctors that do not want to bother differentiating between pain management and drug-seeking pretty much deserve what the DEA does to them.  On the other hand, there are few treatment facilities/programs that really can help drug-dependent folks get clean and straightened out.  (The first is easy, but often done as if meting out punishment rather than treating a physical condition.)

stay safe.

[erictank]

I vote for over the counter laudanum and a return to darwin for dealing with addictions.  Overnight an end on the war on some drugs and a shift to treatment over prosecution.  

Also, I'd be able to get myself some effective pain management for my back which I strained the other day.  An injection of morphine seems about right...  

QFT.

ETA: Allow me to clarify.  My current wife (she was my girlfriend at the time) was hospitalized repeatedly a few years back with something the doctors were unable to figure out, causing migraines, chills, severe gastric distress, and other symptoms.  Bloodwork and other tests performed in the hospital each time were negative for pretty much everything.  During the second hospitalization, the attending physician pulled me out into the hallway douring one visit and point-blank accused Lori of drug-seeking, since they were giving her not-quite-enough to deal with her pain, for not-quite-long-enough (a pattern which carried through after each discharge - she was able to get about 2.5 weeks worth of not-quite-enough pain medication, and then got to do without for a week while they agonized over whether to permit her to renew the scrip.  EVERY.  SINGLE.  FREAKING.  TIME.    For something like a year.).  For wanting to not live in blinding pain (head and abdominal both) which had her out of work lying on a mattress on the living room floor, she was accused of "drug-seeking".   It was everything I could do not to literally reach for that doctor's throat - I truly was seeing red, and I'm fairly sure that came through.

The problem, which none of the doctors were able to figure out, ended up being food allergies.  SHE figured it out, and (fortunately) no longer needs pain-management.  Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of others still do, and have trouble getting it.  And that's f@#ked up.

[MrsSmith]

One of the biggest reasons for my divorce was his addiction to Rx pain meds. I'll grant that he probably did need some form of assistance with the pain (back injury), but he sure as hell didn't need it in the doses or frequency he was taking and he certainly didn't need the daily twelve pack and a joint that he used to wash it all down. And that's just what I know about. The evidence of him hiding money and lying about other things makes me suspect there could have been more I wasn't aware of.

I partially blame the Doc. I spoke with him on several occasions and nothing was done to correct the situation. Not even after a weekend stay in the hospital after he went through his Rx too soon and couldn't get more filled for four days. Withdrawal raised his blood pressure to 196/112, just points away from a stroke. Not even when dye tests showed the damage was no where near bad enough to require the doses he was taking. Not even when I pointed out to the doc that his consumption of a 12-pack of beer coupled with the 1800mg of acetominiphen (mixed with the oxy) daily was likely doing more damage to his vital organs than his back injury ever thought about causing. Nothing.

I partially blame the insurance company for continuing to authorize the max dosage and amounts for A YEAR while they declined surgery four times until it finally came to light that the idiot had refused physical therapy early on and refused pain management treatment - because either of those might have risked his access to his drugs. Six weeks after surgery he was still getting new scripts written!

I mostly blame him for not being big enough to admit that he had a problem and refusing to get treatment for it. Maybe that sounds harsh but I lived with this (and all the financial issues it caused) for a year and it's still a bit fresh. I'd walk through hell for someone willing to help themselves but I won't be dragged through it by anyone.

I don't know what the solution is. Apologies for the rant. Apparently I'm still a bit touchy about the subject. 

[vaskidmark]

Does not sound touchy to me.  Mismanagement coupled with what some might term a weak personality, others a self-centered one, is an almost sure bet for gaming the system.

While waiting for Anathema/BS to agree that my sciatica was in fact debilitating I managed to find a doc that was willing to address the pain effectively.  I was on a narcotics schedule that normally would have been considered too much, too often.  It controlled the pain and actually allowed me to do more than lie in a fetal position and howl in agony.  I stopped taking meds two hours before surgery and managed post-surgery on aspirin with no withdrawal.  Guy next to me had been Rx'd way too little and way too long between doses.  He was gaming to get drugs all 3 days I was in post-surgery before being discharged (remainder of the day of surgery on bedrest and 2 of monitored progressive walking) and was looking at as much as 5 more days before discharge.  I met him again 2 years later when he enrolled in the prison drug program I administered.  He got busted for forging scrips.

stay safe.

[GigaBuist]

My wife started shaking when a doc said he'd give her some Vicodin after getting into a serious accident with a semi truck.

She's started visibly shaking and looked very nervous, which made the doctor nervous, and asked her if there was a problem with that.  Nope, she'd just never taken anything stronger than ibuprofen in her life and was nervous about doing something that strong. And I was there to back that up, told my wife Vicodin is no big deal, it'll just make you a bit drowsy.  You're not going to get high off it or anything.  Well, not with perscribed dosage anyway.  No idea what happens when you load up on the stuff.

Liver damage, I guess.

[MrsSmith]

Does not sound touchy to me.  Mismanagement coupled with what some might term a weak personality, others a self-centered one, is an almost sure bet for gaming the system.

stay safe.

I actually wrote "self-centered" instead of "big enough" but changed it in case it might be offensive to anyone here who's battled some type of addiction. But that, and in some cases a weak personality, are really what it boils down to. My Pop was an alcoholic. When he passed away in 2008 (from lung cancer), he'd been sober for over 15 years. He didn't do meetings, he didn't check himself into a treatment center, he just quit. He had a car accident driving home from the bar one night, totaled his car, put himself in a neck brace for six months, and while in the hospital for that, his doc discovered that he had some pretty serious liver damage. The doc told him that he had two choices. Quit drinking or be prepared to tell his family good bye, probably before his neck brace was removed. Pop said he laid in that hospital bed for a couple days and thought about it good and hard and decided he wanted to live. It wasn't easy for him at first - he was a bartender. But within six months he'd gotten a job driving a truck (not real clear how he managed that with a recent accident on his record, but he did), married the woman he'd been dating for a couple years, and never let it take him back over. Addiction can be beaten with a strong enough will.

Glad your surgery went well and that you had a doc with some common sense.

[HankB]

My doc says a fair percentage of his new patients are clearly "doctor shopping" for certain types of meds, usually opiates of some sort; not really for pain, but for recreational use. (Which puzzles me - the one time I was prescribed Percocet after some surgery the effects weren't "fun" in any sense of the word.)

Sometimes they get a bit upset when he doesn't just write a prescription for whatever they want.

[MechAg94]

I had to get a root canal not to long ago.  The root canal specialists wrote me a prescription for Vicodin to deal with any pain/soreness.  I had no pain whatsoever.  I got the pills before I knew that.  It didn't cost much, and I never felt any need to take any.  I'd really rather not. 

[zahc]

I marvel that so many people don't seem to notice or care that this issue boils down to the fact that our society considers it ok to take drugs to feel good, just as long as they don't make you feel TOO good. People accept that it's ok for others to decide for you what the proper drug dosage is, because if left to your own devices you might make yourself feel better than is considered strictly necessary (by someone, somewhere). And that must be stopped. People in pain do not matter in comparison.

The depravity of humans still amazes me. I hope that it always does, and I never get used to it.

[MechAg94]

But a doctor said it was okay.


Regardless, it boils down to personal responsibility either way.  If you really want to destroy yourself using drugs or other means, you can find a way to do it.  Just because you have a prescription doesn't make it all okay and wholesome.

[Balog]

But a doctor said it was okay.


Regardless, it boils down to personal responsibility either way.  If you really want to destroy yourself using drugs or other means, you can find a way to do it.  Just because you have a prescription doesn't make it all okay and wholesome.

Rush Limbaugh fanboys everywhere are gasping in rage...

[Perd Hapley]

This is in part due to improvements in traffic safety and in part due to more liberal prescribing of pain meds.

Oh sure. Blame the liberals.

Rush Limbaugh fanboys everywhere are gasping in rage...

I'm not sure why that would be, as Limbaugh himself admitted to having a pill addiction (I.e., an unwholesome one). I presume you can point me to someone who said that his pill addiction was OK and wholesome?

[Balog]

Oh sure. Blame the liberals.


I'm not sure why that would be, as Limbaugh himself admitted to having a pill addiction (I.e., an unwholesome one). I presume you can point me to someone who said that his pill addiction was OK and wholesome?

People on this here forum, when confronted with Limbaugh's hypocrisy in calling for harsher penalties for potheads while he was himself a junkie, stated that it wasn't his fault he was an addict because he was originally prescribed them and was therefore morally superior to a purely recreational drug user.

[Perd Hapley]

People on this here forum, when confronted with Limbaugh's hypocrisy in calling for harsher penalties for potheads while he was himself a junkie, stated that it wasn't his fault he was an addict because he was originally prescribed them and was therefore morally superior to a purely recreational drug user.

Oh, so nobody said that. Got it.


Also, you'll have to acknowledge the difference between his being at fault (which I'm pretty sure he'd admit to) and his being morally superior to recreational pot-users (which seems a perfectly harmless sentiment). You would also need to supply the quotation wherein he calls for harsher penalties for pot-heads. I don't recall that, but that doesn't mean he didn't.

[Balog]

Oh, so nobody said that. Got it.


Also, you'll have to acknowledge the difference between his being at fault (which I'm pretty sure he'd admit to) and his being morally superior to recreational pot-users (which seems a perfectly harmless sentiment). You would also need to supply the quotation wherein he calls for harsher penalties for pot-heads. I don't recall that, but that doesn't mean he didn't.

I don't grant that as a harmless sentiment, akshully.

And sure, let me just go comb through hundreds of hours worth of transcripts (which afaik you need to pay to access and do not have a working search functionality) to find something I heard on the radio years ago. I'll be sure to get right on that.

[TommyGunn]

People on this here forum, when confronted with Limbaugh's hypocrisy in calling for harsher penalties for potheads while he was himself a junkie, stated that it wasn't his fault he was an addict because he was originally prescribed them and was therefore morally superior to a purely recreational drug user.

I don't recall Limbaugh  calling for "harsher penalties" for potheads.  I recall him being against legalizing pot.
Not the same thing.
And Limbaugh wasn't taking oxycontine recreationally, as pot users do.  He was using it as a painkiller and wound up with a serious addiction. 
To me, atleast, if you want to claim Limbaugh was being a "hypocrite" you ought to prove he was using marijuana recreationally while maintaining it should be illegal.  That would give more credibility to your claim of hs "hypocrisy."
I get you don't like the talkmeister but it doesn't give you free range to make up your own meanings for words.
Atleast remember the old addage; "hypocrisy is the tribute virtue pays to vice."
I bet if you were examined you might find you've been a hypocrite once or twice in your life.

[MicroBalrog]

I bet if you were examined you might find you've been a hypocrite once or twice in your life. Wink

“Nobody is perfect in this world” is a rationalization for the desire to continue indulging in one’s imperfections, i.e., the desire to escape morality.

[TommyGunn]

No, it is an acknowledgement that we are not perfect.

[Perd Hapley]

“Nobody is perfect in this world” is a rationalization for the desire to continue indulging in one’s imperfections, i.e., the desire to escape morality.

In this case, it's saving the word hypocrite from becoming so over-used as to be meaningless. If everyone who violated their own moral code was a hypocrite, it would become hypocritical to accuse anyone else of using the term.

Also, "nobody is perfect" is just a truthful observation. The quotation above is insufficiently specific.

[Balog]

And you would be making the same argument if this was about Michael Moore or a liberal politician too, right?

[Lee]

If everyone who violated their own moral code was a hypocrite, it would become hypocritical to accuse anyone else of using the term.

That hurts my brain...I think I'll go crash my car recreationally.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

may i help?


"There’s nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up," Mr. Limbaugh declared on his radio show on October 5th, 1995.***

and better
He concluded the point by noting: "What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we’re not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."***


Here is what the record to date shows: Mr. Limbaugh’s housekeeper, Wilma Cline, approached Florida media and Florida authorities to reveal that she had acted as Rush Limbaugh’s drug buyer for years, purchasing "more than 30,000 hydrocodone, Lorcet and OcyContin pills," and she reports he "took as many as 30 OxyContin pills a day."**** Florida authorities then began investigating, and Ms. Cline’s allegations have apparently proved solid, certainly solid enough for the State of Florida to take action.

This means, of course, that for quite a long period Mr. Limbaugh was heavily abusing prescription narcotics while continuing to conduct his radio talk show. In short, this means that Mr. Limbaugh was often under the influence of drugs when he was on the air, delivering a hard right-wing message. To be truly blunt, it appears he was stoned while adhering to a position that anyone who uses drugs should be incarcerated.

http://www.bradleyreport.net/commentary/StonedRush.htm


http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=5410

[Balog]

Everyone knows pointing out hypocrisy is in itself hypocritical and wrong. Assuming the hypocrite is on your own side anyway...