Admissions for heroin addiction now surpass those for other substances, yet much of the nation’s spending and law enforcement resources remain targeted on opioid prescriptions. Many public health officials also cling to the myth the heroin epidemic was triggered by opioid overprescribing, even though heroin admissions outnumber painkiller admissions by a 3 to 1 margin.
“Epidemiological data show that as widely prescribed opioids became less accessible due to supply side interventions, heroin use skyrocketed,“ psychiatrist Nora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, recently told OpioidWatch. Volkow was an early supporter of the CDC opioid guideline, one of the first supply side interventions, a strategy that she now characterizes as “naive.”
“Expecting that declines in rates of prescribed opioids could, by themselves, stem the tide of the opioid crisis is naïve and an oversimplification of the complex nature of the crisis,” Volkow said. “Legitimate questions have been raised about whether some pain patients might now be undertreated, and whether tightened prescribing practices over the last few years has contributed to the surge in overdose deaths from heroin and especially fentanyl.”
A recent study by SAMHSA found that deaths linked to illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids surpassed overdoses involving pain medication in 2016. The study also found that drugs used to treat depression and anxiety are involved in more overdoses than any other class of medication.
“In 2010, there were 270,564 admissions in which heroin was identified as the primary substance of abuse. By 2015, that number had grown to 401,743 admissions – an increase of nearly a third.”
These people can’t even do SIMPLE MATH…
A INCREASE from 270,564 to 401,743 is nearly a 50% INCREASE…
IF there had been a reduction from 401,743 to 270,564 would have been a DECREASE of 30%
With these people … I wonder if 2+2 is still equal to FOUR ?
