Here are two inquiries and responses from Grok, which can be found within the X/Twitter website. The first was fairly factual. IMO, most of the opioid deaths were from Pharma opioids that were diverted. People would go to a “Oxy doc” and get some meds and sell half of what they got, to help pay for their half and what they had to pay to travel over several states to get to a “oxy doc’s office” to get a Rx.1-An overview of my conversation with @Grok, on how the ‘opioid crisis’ scam is harming vulnerable patients/ a scam that’s led to policies which severely limit access to opioids, benzodiazepines, and ADHD medications, devastating patients who rely on them.
2-“Overprescribing” lacks a clear legal or medical definition. It is a made up term that emerged in the late 1990s and 2000s as a catch-all term to describe high prescription opioid volumes based on a medically baseless maximum ‘morphine milligram equivalent’, or MME.
3-The made up term was popularized by media, advocacy groups, and regulators to frame prescription opioids as the primary driver of rising overdose deaths, despite limited evidence isolating their impact from illicit drugs.
4-The rx litigation narrative gained traction with reports like the CDC’s 2011 claim that prescription opioid overdoses drove the crisis, ignoring that death certificates often listed “opioids” without distinguishing between prescription and illicit sources.
5-This conflation was exacerbated by the lack of routine testing for IMF until the mid-2000s, when forensic labs began widely adopting mass spectrometry to detect fentanyl analogs.
6-Illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF) has been documented since the 1970s, with early outbreaks like the 1980s “China White” epidemic in California. However, until the mid-2000s, most coroners’ offices lacked the capability to test for fentanyl or its analogs,
7-Instead, reports on cause of death relied on basic toxicology panels that flagged “opioids” generically. A 2006 Journal of Analytical Toxicology study noted that fentanyl-related deaths were likely underreported due to testing limitations, skewing data toward Rx opioids.
8-By the time testing improved (post-2005), IMF was already surging, but the “overprescribing” narrative was entrenched. CDC data shows prescription opioid deaths peaked around 2011 (~17,000 annually), while fentanyl-driven deaths skyrocketed after 2013…
9- (street fentanyl deaths) reaching 82,000 of 108,000 total overdose deaths in 2022. The early absence of IMF testing falsely inflated the perceived role of prescription opioids, justifying restrictive policies.
10-Access Denied: The CDC’s 2016 opioid prescribing guidelines, rooted in the hyperbolic “overprescribing” narrative, set arbitrary dose limits (e.g., 90 morphine milligram equivalents), leading doctors and pharmacies to refuse or taper patients with chronic pain conditions…
11-People with conditions like neuropathy, rheumatoid arthritis, EDS, Fibromyalgia, severe injuries, even terminal cancer. A 2021 Pain Medicine study found 25–50% of pain patients lost access to opioids post-2016, with many reporting untreated pain and reduced quality of life.
This response seems to be Grok giving a summary of mostly “fake news” headlines. It seem to flip back and forth between talking about Fentanyl and illicit Fentanyl or Fentanyl mostly sourced illegally. The time frame mentioned was a period when during the Decade of Pain Law was in effect.
I presume that the numbers stated were from the CDC. It mentioned so many prescriptions per 100,000 people. Which is mostly meaningless, since the prescriptions could be for Oxycontin/Oxycodone 5mg to 30 mg IR and Oxycontin/Oxycodone 10mg to 80 mg ER. Likewise, the number of doses per prescription could be anywhere up to 90 days supply.
Who believes that prescribed opioids dropped 55%, and yet the reported pharma opioids OD/poisoning dropped ~ 1%.
From Grok: Opioid overdoses stem from both illegal street drugs and overprescribing by doctors, but the balance has shifted over time. Data from the CDC shows that from 1999 to 2011, overdoses were heavily driven by prescription opioids, with deaths linked to drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone peaking due to widespread prescribing. By 2010, the U.S. saw about 1.8 million prescriptions per 100,000 people, and prescription opioid deaths reached 16,917 in 2011. Since then, illegal street drugs, particularly illicit fentanyl, have become the dominant driver. By 2021, of the 106,699 total drug overdose deaths, over 70,000 involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl, mostly sourced illegally. Fentanyl’s rise is tied to its potency and infiltration into heroin, cocaine, and counterfeit pills. Prescription opioid deaths, while still significant, dropped to around 16,706 by 2021 as prescribing rates fell—down to about 0.8 million per 100,000 people by 2020 due to tighter regulations and monitoring. Both factors interplay: overprescribing initially fueled addiction, pushing some users to street drugs when prescriptions became harder to obtain. Now, illegal fentanyl’s accessibility and lethality overshadow prescription-related deaths, though the latter remains a persistent issue.
Normally, I use www.perplexity.ai and I learned early on that these AI programs can be biased or use the most frequently stated information in the various media. Which should not be a surprise since a few companies own/manage a large segment of the news media. I did find out when the AI was incorrect or “off base” that I could tell it to go back out and “dig a little deeper for the truth” and they will come back and give more correct information. Now if they continue to use the new information if others ask similar questions they use that or fall back to the information that they provided me?
Filed under: General Problems
Funny u mention the word,,”over-prescibe,”,,I got a couple of old 2009,2008,2007, webster red dictionary,,that word does not even appear,,,no such word existed,,until,,,,,,$$$$$$$$$$$,,litigation cases use it for finacial gain,,there is no such word prior to all these fake lawsuit against manufacturers,,maryw