The Opioid Crisis Debate
Government Data Refute the Notion That Overprescribing Caused the 'Opioid Crisis'
The CDC’s numbers show that pain treatment is not responsible for escalating drug-related deaths.
https://reason.com/2024/04/15/government-data-refute-the-notion-that-overprescribing-caused-the-opioid-crisis/
In part:
The rise in accidental deaths since 2010 is dominated by street drugs—in particular, illegally produced fentanyl, which shows up in counterfeit pain pills as well as heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Legal prescriptions are lost in the noise of illicit drugs, which are often combined with alcohol. While most drug-related deaths involve multiple substances, deaths among patients who take opioids by prescription for pain relief almost never do.
The root of the opioid crisis is not pain treatment. It is instead a crisis of hopelessness driven by the conditions in which people live, including social isolation, economic distress, and a lack of meaningful prospects for a better future. Reducing the availability of pain-relieving medications or prosecuting doctors for "overprescribing" does nothing to address those problems. Yet millions of pain patients have been force-tapered to ineffective dose levels, and thousands of them are dying of medical collapse or suicide, while the DEA continues to persecute their doctors for trying to help them. It is time to evict the DEA from doctors' examination rooms.
The CDC’s numbers show that pain treatment is not responsible for escalating drug-related deaths.
https://reason.com/2024/04/15/government-data-refute-the-notion-that-overprescribing-caused-the-opioid-crisis/
In part:
The rise in accidental deaths since 2010 is dominated by street drugs—in particular, illegally produced fentanyl, which shows up in counterfeit pain pills as well as heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Legal prescriptions are lost in the noise of illicit drugs, which are often combined with alcohol. While most drug-related deaths involve multiple substances, deaths among patients who take opioids by prescription for pain relief almost never do.
The root of the opioid crisis is not pain treatment. It is instead a crisis of hopelessness driven by the conditions in which people live, including social isolation, economic distress, and a lack of meaningful prospects for a better future. Reducing the availability of pain-relieving medications or prosecuting doctors for "overprescribing" does nothing to address those problems. Yet millions of pain patients have been force-tapered to ineffective dose levels, and thousands of them are dying of medical collapse or suicide, while the DEA continues to persecute their doctors for trying to help them. It is time to evict the DEA from doctors' examination rooms.
