Confessions of a DEA Agent: When Everything’s Illegal Nothing’s Illegal

CRPS/RSD Awareness Walk

More healthcare needed than Maine can afford ?

Eastern Maine Medical Center staff walk down a hallway in the hospital in Bangor. Cooperation is essential to addressing health care challenges in Maine

https://bangordailynews.com/2017/05/21/opinion/contributors/cooperation-is-essential-to-addressing-health-care-challenges-in-maine/

The health care challenges that we as Americans face are significant. An aging population, high prevalence of chronic diseases, stretched public and private budgets, and a lack of health insurance for nearly one in nine of our citizens are realities we need to recognize and address.

Here in Maine, these challenges are even tougher because our population is the oldest and most rural in the country. Older adults simply require more care to stay healthy. And while we as Mainers love our state’s natural beauty and independent way of life, it’s more costly to serve a population spread out across a very large geography.

Many of Gov. Paul LePage’s budget decisions have further added to the challenges of providing high-quality care in Maine. During the past four years, hospitals have dealt with the negative impact of Medicaid (also known as MaineCare) reimbursement cuts, increased hospital taxes and narrowing MaineCare eligibility, which leads to more uninsured and needed charity care. These are annual cuts of $55 million that were imposed when Maine’s Medicaid program had a significant deficit in 2013. Hospital payments have been reduced by more than $200 million since 2013 because of these initiatives. Additionally, the hospital tax was increased. The Eastern Maine Health Systems total hospital tax resulted in an annual net negative impact of $5 million.

As a result, since 2012, an average of 18 Maine hospitals have reported negative operating margins each year. This is not sustainable.

 

EMHS is doing what it can to keep local access to affordable, high-quality care by organizing doctors, hospitals and other providers into a coordinated system of care. By working together, we are able to more consistently follow clinical best practices, get better discounts on expensive medical equipment and supplies, avoid unnecessary and costly duplication of services, and invest in and benefit from a strong set of common support services. This leads to excellent care close-to-home, and to a seamless and coordinated transfer to other system facilities and resources when this is required.

We have also fully embraced what is known as “accountable care,” delivering better coordinated care to our patients. Providers work together to address quality, engagement and the overall cost of care while supporting Maine’s most vulnerable residents, many of whom are living with a chronic disease. This has helped reduce medication errors, unnecessary emergency department visits and has increased individual responsibility for adhering to tailored plans of care.

Along with improving the cost and quality of care to individuals, EMHS also looks out for the health of Maine’s communities. This is done through partnerships with community health and social service groups, and public health organizations across the state. A few examples of the community benefit in our 2016 fiscal year include:

EMHS provided $29.1 million in free or reduced price care to Mainers who qualify under our financial assistance policy.

EMHS hospitals partnered with our communities to improve health outside the walls of our facilities, investing $3.8 million in programs such as health education; community-based clinical services, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, bone density, glucose and other screenings; health care support services, such as Sebasticook’s courtesy van that provides free transportation from qualifying patient’s homes to the hospital or doctor’s appointments; and social and environmental improvement activities such as providing healthy food options by collaborating with community partners to address needs in our communities.

EMHS provided nearly $2.7 million in funding for clinical, community health and health care delivery research that can be shared with the public to improve health care.

EMHS invested $730,000 in community building activities that address the root causes of health problems such as homelessness and provided more than $435,000 in cash and in-kind contributions to community partnerships that advance the health of the communities we serve.

EMHS members were also instrumental in forging plans to combat the opioid abuse that is rampant in Maine. In the Portland, Bangor, Down East and Aroostook regions, EMHS hospitals and other members worked alongside police and sheriffs and other health care providers on this timely and concerning issue.

EMHS partnered with colleges and universities to provide training for jobs in health care for Maine’s younger generation, which also will help meet the state’s health care needs going forward, investing $2.6 million in such programs.

Health care is in a transformative time. Access to high-quality and affordable care is critical to the individuals and communities of our state. EMHS is an important community asset and partner. By coordinating health care as a system, EMHS is doing the right things toward not only preserving but improving high value health care.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/maines-first-lady-ann-lepage-takes-summertime-waitressing-job-pick-n598906

Maine’s First Lady Ann LePage Takes Summertime Waitressing Job to Pick Up Cash

Maine is also is in the process to implement some the most strict opiate dosing guidelines. Since most chronic pain pts are struggling financially… and on Medicaid ?… if the state is in such financial trouble  – that the first lady has to take a summer job  – is the the reduced medical care to the chronic pain community just another means of “cost cutting”… using the fabricated “opiate epidemic” as the ruse to pass those opiate dosing guidelines  ?

Special Guest: Dr. Teitelbaum, MD May 24th 09:00 EDT

www.livesupportgroup.com/join-us/

CLICK LINK TO REGISTER FOR MEETING

PT “DOCTOR SHOPS”… OD’s… Family sues.. no personal responsibility ?

Man’s family sues doctors after fatal overdose

http://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/mans-family-sues-doctors-after-fatal-overdose/515967345

McKEESPORT, Pa. – The family of a McKeesport man is suing his doctors, claiming that they repeatedly gave him prescription painkillers despite knowing about his addiction.
 
Nicholas Classic died in October 2015 after overdosing on prescription drugs. He was 29.
According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed Tuesday in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, doctors at a McKeesport clinic prescribed Classic painkillers in March 2013 after an MRI showed a mild bulged disk in his back. 
 
Classic continued to receive pain medication for two years before the doctor wrote a note saying, in part: 
 
“Patient in the past few weeks has demonstrated overuse, urgency in wanting to obtain further quantity when overtaken and has called this office several times insistent on knowing when his medications would be prescribed.” 
 
Family members said Classic had a near fatal overdose less than a month later, but found other doctors to prescribe painkillers to him. The lawsuit alleges this patter continued until his fatal overdose in October 2015. 
The lawsuit was filed by Classic’s mother. Seven doctors and counselors are named as defendants.
 
“She had been waging an almost one-woman crusade to get these doctors to stop prescribing to her son,” said Alan Perer, the Classic family’s attorney. “She failed in her attempts to prevent this from happening to her son. She would like to see the system improve.” 
 
Channel 11 reached out to the seven doctors and counselors named in the lawsuit. All either declined to comment or did not return phone calls. 
 
The prescription drug monitoring program was not implemented until several months after Classic’s death. The program requires doctors to put patients getting prescription drugs into a shared system to prevent “doctor shopping.” 

‘Prescription opioid epidemic’ is fake

Joseph Ohler Jr.: ‘Prescription opioid epidemic’ is fake

http://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/mailbag/joseph-ohler-jr-prescription-opioid-epidemic-is-fake/article_ed21bba9-fee3-5986-a8d1-35c109ae3d76.html

Dear Editor: The Wisconsin Legislature patted itself on its collective backside for passing a series of measures, known as the HOPE agenda, that make it more difficult for patients in legitimate pain to acquire prescription painkillers.

As will be shown statistically by rankings compiled from Wisconsin Health Department mortality data, this is an overkill measure against a fake “epidemic” to make a dramatic statement at a high human cost of needless suffering from subtherapeutic pain treatment.

How severe is our so-called “prescription opioid epidemic”?

 Deaths from prescription painkillers are only the 16th-most lethal phenomenon in Wisconsin.

More lethal are homicide (15th place); Alzheimer’s disease (5th place); and unintentional injuries (3rd place). Yet we don’t see the Health Department refer to these as “epidemics.”

(A complete list of mortality, by cause, can be found by googling “16 Leading Causes of Death in Wisconsin.”)

While fighting the fake opioid “epidemic,” our lawmakers denied the preponderance of underutilized college graduates by stripping one of Gov. Scott Walker’s best ideas to date: the nonfiscal policy directive that would require the University of Wisconsin System to provide every interested student with at least one internship or work experience directly relevant to his or her field of study.

Joseph Ohler Jr.

La Valle

states have a “moral obligation” to help drug addicts who won’t help themselves

New Laws Force Drug Users Into Rehab Against Their Will

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/19/new-laws-force-drug-users-into-rehab-against-their-will

Involuntary commitment laws are being opened up to allow some people to be detained for overdosing or even having visible track marks—in some cases up to 90 days.

Debra Hicks went to work on Sept. 19, 2011, to teach California high school students about the Constitution. But that night she got a crash course on how easily her own civil rights could be violated, when she overdosed on her pain pills and a psychiatrist she’d never met involuntary committed her to Glendale Adventist Medical Center, near Los Angeles.

By the time she was released six days later, Hicks claims she had been placed in five-point restraints and “forcibly and unwillingly subjected to the use of strong antipsychotic medications”—according to an ongoing lawsuit against the facility.

Her only “crime,” she says, was having a bad reaction to her doctor-prescribed opioid medication.

Now lawmakers in at least eight states are considering bills that would make it even easier for drug users like Hicks to be forced into treatment against their will.

Proponents insist the bills are an unfortunate but necessary response to a troubling rise in the number of Americans dying from drugs like Oxycontin and heroin. But patients rights advocates say involuntary commitment is an overly extreme measure that will only make addicts’ lives worse.

Meanwhile, the private prison industry is waiting quietly in the wings, sensing an opportunity to get new business in the wake of declining prison populations.

 “The idea of using the criminal justice system or civil commitment to compel drug users to accept treatment is ridiculous,” said Dr. Mark Willenbring, an internationally recognized addiction psychiatrist and founder of the Alltyr clinic in Minnesota. “Why aren’t we incarcerating people with heart disease who continue to smoke or people with diabetes who don’t manage their diet?”

According to the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, 37 states already have statutes that allow substance abusers who have not committed a crime to be briefly detained against their will. In most cases the legal bar is high—often requiring a finding that the person being committed has threatened to harm themselves or another person.

Over the past several years, however, states have been quietly revising their laws to allow for longer periods of commitment with fewer legal hurdles.

Kentucky and Ohio led the push. And in 2015 Mike Pence signed a law permitting involuntary commitment for drug users in Indiana.

Last year, Florida followed suit, passing a new measure that allows individuals with substance abuse problems to be held up to 90 days against their will. A petition can be filed by “any adult with direct personal observed knowledge of the respondent’s impairment,” and must only show probable cause that the individual has “lost the power of self-control with respect to substance abuse” and are “incapable of making a rational decision regarding his or her need for care.”

Lawmakers in New Jersey have been trying for the past two years to get a similar measure on the books there. The latest iteration of the bill, introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Joseph Lagana (Paramus), would allow a police officer with no addiction training to detain a person if they have “reasonable cause” to believe that the person is in need of involuntary treatment.

Three such bills are currently being considered in Pennsylvania, including one that would permit forced treatment for any individual who “has ingested an amount of drugs as to render himself unconscious or in need of medical treatment to prevent imminent death or serious bodily harm.”

Like many of the new measures, the bill would authorize up to 90 days of involuntary inpatient drug treatment.

Since most addicts are not “severely mentally impaired,” legal experts say that once they are detoxed it will become increasingly difficult to justify involuntary detention. That means that, in practice, the period of commitment is likely to be much shorter.

Addiction experts say that could actually lead to an increased risk of overdose, as drug users return to the community without the physical tolerance they had only days or weeks earlier.

“Often what will happen is that people will remain sober through treatment but then rapidly return to use as soon as they are out,” said Kirk Bowden, a certified addiction clinician and the former president of the Association for Addiction Professionals.

Lawmakers in New Hampshire, Alabama, Maryland, Michigan, and Mississippi are also considering broad civil commitment measures this session.

David Freed, district attorney for Cumberland County, Pennsylvania—where overdose fatalities doubled in 2016—supports the measure, and says states have a “moral obligation” to help drug addicts who he says won’t help themselves.

“The process should be seamless. It should be standard, and frankly, it should not be optional,” he testified last year.

But morality and medicine are frequently at odds, as Hicks’ case shows.

Like millions of other Americans, Hicks suffers from chronic pain issues, including fibromyalgia—a painful nerve condition—three herniated disks and two pinched nerves.

Her treatment includes seeing a pain management specialist, and taking prescribed medications that include opioid painkillers.

According to a lawsuit she filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, on the day her ordeal began Hicks had forgotten to take her morning dose of painkillers. As the hours wore on she found herself in increasing physical distress. By the time she got home that evening she says she was experiencing severe pain, and erroneously believed she needed to take more than her prescribed dose to make up for the missed one.

Hicks’ roommate found her passed out on the floor of the apartment they shared and called 911.

Though she managed to walk to the ambulance that would take her to the emergency room, doctors there told Hicks that, as a matter of protocol, patients who have suffered a drug overdose must speak to a psychiatrist before being released.  

According to her lawsuit, Hicks waited nine hours after she was discharged from the emergency room before a nurse informed her she was being detained under a 1967 law that  gives psychiatrists in California limited powers to hold a person who is dangerous to themselves or others due to mental illness against their will for up to 14 days.

Hospital records attached to Hicks’ lawsuit say her only formal diagnosis was “depression.” When Hicks attempted to leave the hospital—a full 24 hours after being released from the ER—she was chased down and brought back by local police and hospital security guards, she asserts in her complaint.

“The Hicks case is a dramatic example of how a person can be captured into a system by people who pretend to be trained to help but actually completely misunderstand the process,” said Hicks’ attorney, Gary S. Brown, in an email to The Daily Beast.

In court filings, the hospital does not dispute the facts of the case, but argues that it is immune from civil action under California’s civil commitment law—which requires only a finding of probable cause that an individual is a danger to themselves.

Brown, who has spent the better part of three decades defending clients who’ve been involuntarily committed, says that while patients can challenge that finding in court after a few days of confinement, the odds are often stacked against them.

While forcing substance abusers into treatment may provide temporary relief for family members who are dealing with an addicted loved one, experts say it offers little help for the person actually suffering from addiction.

A recent study published by the medical journal the Lancet found that heroin users forced into treatment “had significantly more rapid relapse to opioid use post-release” compared with those who voluntarily sought help.

Involuntary commitment also violates the ethics codes of some treatment organizations, such as the Association for Addiction Professionals (PDF).

Meanwhile, detaining a person who has committed no crime based on what they might do in the future has potentially severe long-term repercussions.

“Involuntary commitment gives someone a lifelong marker that interferes with their ability to get health care coverage or own a firearm, and it could prevent them from getting certain jobs, like federal employment,” said Mary Catherine Roper, of the the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

Once a civil commitment is on a person’s record, Roper says, it’s nearly impossible to get it expunged.

But there’s another, more pressing problem with involuntary commitment for substance abuse: Most states don’t have enough treatment beds even for the people who want them.

Massachusetts—which has permitted courts to force drug users into treatment for more than two decades—has so little bed space for drug addicts seeking help that those compelled into treatment are often sent to one of two state correctional facilities instead. Last year, the state actually had to pass a law to ensure that women who are involuntarily detained for drug abuse go to an actual treatment facility instead of jail.

Doctors say giving precedence to drug addicts who don’t want treatment will almost certainly make it harder for those who do want treatment to access it.

“There are waiting lists for treatment right now,” said Dr. Raymond Bobb, an addiction doctor in Philadelphia who treats patients with methadone and Suboxone. “Plenty of people are seeking treatment and waiting for spots to open up, do these people supersede them?”

That has caught the attention of the private prison industry—which has been refocusing its efforts on treatment and reentry services as states have moved to reduce the number of inmates in their correctional systems.

Pennsylvania lacks any secure drug treatment facilities—with the exception of those currently contracted by the Department of Corrections. In February, Gov. Tom Wolf announced the state would cut $40 million from its community corrections budget and plans to eliminate 1,500 halfway house beds.  

Weeks later private prison firm The GEO Group completed its $360 million acquisition of Community Education Centers, which operates five residential reentry facilities in Pennsylvania. The GEO Group spent more than $112,000 lobbying lawmakers in Harrisburg over the past 12 months.

Correct Care Recovery Solutions (CCRS), a subsidiary spun off by GEO Group in 2013, also operates residential psychiatric treatment hospitals, as well as the only privatized civil commitment facility in the country (in Florida). In addition to Pennsylvania, the company manages facilities in several states where civil commitment measures are being considered.

New laws that would put thousands of otherwise innocent Americans into locked treatment units could potentially be a windfall for the company and others like it. But like so many other failed policies in the War on Drugs, it will be the most desperate and marginalized Americans who will pay the price.

FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL ?

D-prescribing – taking away a pt’s medication(s) because the “BOOK” says so ?

Adding Pharmacists Doubles Deprescription Success

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/880351#vp_1

SAN ANTONIO — An intervention in which Canadian pharmacists faxed their opinions about benzodiazepine use in older adults to physicians resulted in twice the number of deprescriptions as patient education alone, according to early data from the randomized controlled D-PRESCRIBE trial.

“In Canada, about two-thirds of those aged 65 and up take at least five medications daily, and one-quarter take at least 10 medications,” said investigator Philippe Martin, a PhD student in pharmaceutical sciences at Université de Montréal.

Appropriate medication use is a top target in geriatrics, and healthcare in general. One of the main concerns is potential adverse effects, which are compounded by the polypharmacy common in older adults.

The focus of D-PRESCRIBE was benzodiazepines “because they are the most prominent inappropriate prescription, even though the side effects have been known for a long time. And it is one of the hardest classes of drug to deprescribe,” Martin explained here at the American Geriatrics Society 2017 Annual Scientific Meeting.

The trial grew out of the randomized EMPOWER trial, which was designed to educate older adults about the potential risks and harms of benzodiazepines (JAMA Intern Med. 2014;174:890-898), in the hope that patients would become “a catalyst for deprescribing inappropriate benzodiazepines,” Martin told Medscape Medical News.

The EMPOWER intervention involved an eight-page brochure, written at a low-literacy level in large font. In addition to risks and harms, the brochure suggested alternative drugs and offered a tapering-off schedule, designed to encourage patients to discuss discontinuation with a pharmacist or healthcare provider.

Six months after the intervention, a discontinuation rate of 27% was achieved, reported Martin, who was one of the EMPOWER investigators.

However, the researchers discovered that there was often resistance from physicians when patients approached them with the information, because physicians often were unaware of the risks or did not have an alternative drug to prescribe, Martin explained.

For that reason, he and his colleagues developed the D-PRESCRIBE trial, which added an evidence-based opinion from a pharmacist faxed to the patient’s physician.

Participating pharmacists still gave patients the educational brochure used in the EMPOWER trial, but they also faxed evidenced-based pharmaceutical opinions to prescribers outlining the potential risks of benzodiazepines and encouraging deprescription.

Patients, pharmacists, physicians, and evaluators were blinded to the research.

Physicians could quickly change a prescription by writing their license number on the fax, signing it, and returning it to the pharmacist.

 The main outcome of D-PRESCRIBE was discontinuation of benzodiazepines at 6 months that was sustained for at least 3 months. The researchers determined this by reviewing pharmacy renewal profiles.

The deprescription rate was higher in D-PRESCRIBE than in EMPOWER (odds ratio, 2.17; 95% confidence Interval, 1.21% – 3.67%).

“By sending out the opinions, we provided physicians with the proper tools to be more educated when their patients came in asking about deprescribing,” Martin said.
Having the pharmacist connect with the doctor is a very smart idea.
The pushback seen in Canada from physicians who received notes from pharmacists would likely also happen in the United States, said Rosanne Leipzig, MD, PhD, vice chair of education for the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
“I think there’s an overload feeling in this country by physicians, with everyone telling them what to do,” she told Medscape Medical News.
However, with the current increase in multidisciplinary teams, there might be less resistance now than there would have been years ago, she pointed out.
“I don’t know how it would fly here, but it’s certainly worth trying,” she added.
The brochure is well designed, and gets people to understand that what they think is helping them might actually be hurting them, she explained.
“And they got a great response,” she noted. “Having the pharmacist connect with the doctor is a very smart idea.”
As you get older, you will also have more side effects.
 Benzodiazepines are extremely hard to get patients off of, said Dr Leipzig, and deprescribing takes months and often involves withdrawal.
 “As you get older, you will also have more side effects. That’s hard to explain to people who have been on them for a long time and haven’t had any problems,” she added.
 The D-PRESCRIBE trial is ongoing. At the beginning of the trial, the study involved 46 pharmacies, but that number has grown to more than 90. Data gathering will likely be completed by the end of the summer, Martin reported, and results will likely be published by the end of the year.

The team is expanding their work to include widely prescribed drug classes that meet the Beers criteria for inappropriate use in older adults, such as first-generation antihistamines and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, he added.

Mr Martin and Dr Leipzig have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 American Geriatrics Society (AGS) 2017 Annual Scientific Meeting. Presented May 18, 2017.
Follow Medscape on Twitter @Medscape and Marcia Frellick @mfrellick
 
In the USA, Pharmacists – particularly those in the chains – are expected to review and approve a Rx in 60-90 seconds… along with all the other of their required daily functions… right now they don’t have the time to do the legally mandatory counseling on new Rxs and who believes that they will have or take the time to “evaluate” a pt’s need or lack of need for a medication… The younger PharmD’s are primarily educated to make decisions “by the numbers”…. You get a pt greater than a certain age (elderly) and Beer’s criteria states that they should not be talking that medication..  “the numbers” say that the medication should be discontinued. That kind of logic may work with certain medications that have a definitive means of measuring their effectiveness… like blood/lab testing.. When we are dealing with medications that are dealing with subjective issues (anxiety, depression, pain etc), IMO.. this is a program designed for FAILURE because it is inserting the WRONG MID-LEVEL HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL into the equation and the quality of life of all too many pts will deteriorate.

Fentanyl seized by law enforcement doubled in 2016, DEA says

Fentanyl seized by law enforcement doubled in 2016, DEA says

http://www.wlwt.com/article/fentanyl-seized-by-law-enforcement-doubled-in-2016-dea-says/9886466

The United States is seeing a dramatic increase in drugs containing fentanyl, newly released data from the Drug Enforcement Administration shows.

 From 2015 to 2016, more than twice as many drugs seized by law enforcement agencies and submitted to labs have tested positive for fentanyl, in what appears to be an escalating trend.

The National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS), a program of the DEA, points to a drastic surge of lab submissions that tested positive for fentanyl — going from 15,209 in 2015 to 31,700 in 2016.

In addition, lab testing of fentanyl analogues — drugs with close structural resemblance and similar effects to fentanyl — went from 2,230 in 2015 to 4,782 in 2016.

“Drug use today has become a game of Russian roulette. There’s no such thing as a safe batch, this is the opioid crisis at its worst,” DEA spokesman Rusty Payne told CNN.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid typically prescribed to treat patients with severe pain, is approximately 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine, according to the NFLIS.

Last year, the country lost more than 52,000 Americans to drug overdose — more than 33,000 of those from opioids, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. It means more people die from opioid-related causes than from gun homicides and traffic fatalities — combined, the DEA states.

Fentanyl reports remained fairly steady between 2003-2013, until sharp increases occurred beginning in 2014 through 2016, particularly noticeable in the Northeast and Midwest.

“Drug addicts know they are taking fentanyl at times, and know it can kill them, but are willing to take the risk,” Payne said, adding that Chinese labs that manufacture the substances are trying to stay ahead of law enforcement using chemistry advances, tweaking the chemical structure to create a slightly different analogue.

Payne also pointed at “a tremendous opioid demand in this country” that pushes Mexican drug cartels to add pure fentanyl to heroin batches, creating hundreds of thousands of dosage units. According to DEA reports, Mexico continues to supply up to 85-90% of the domestic heroin market.

The DEA is working hard on education, enforcement and prevention to battle the crisis, Payne said, but added it is a vicious cycle that is eventually up to the community to end. “The next generation has to be better. We need to make sure people don’t ever start,” he said.

It has been reported that the DEA will admit that they are only able to seize/confiscate about 4% of illegal drugs that get to our streets. With the increased seizures of the various analogs of Fentanyl & Heroin .. just how many more KILOGRAMS that are getting to the street.

33,000 deaths from opiates … no mention of the 100,000 – THREE TIMES that die from the use/abuse of Alcohol, which increased about 20% from 2015 to 2016. Nor the FOURTEEN TIMES (450,000 ) the deaths from the use/abuse Nicotine.

Two DRUGS…and as how the DEA puts it “with no valid medical use” and those two drugs killing 550,000 every year .. like SIX COMMERCIAL AIRLINERS falling out of the sky EVERYDAY… killing all on board.

Unless someone dies from a “alcohol related” traffic accident.. all of those other alcohol related deaths you will only see it in the obit columns in the local paper with no reference to ALCOHOL .. NO national media, NO breaking news on TV.. As they say in the news industry… “.. if it BLEEDS… it LEADS …”

A country of “drug seekers”

There is abt 4.5 BILLION prescriptions filled – in community pharmacies and via mail order pharmacies –  in the USA EVERY YEAR and we have some 320 million residents… doing the math that means that each person would have 14 prescriptions filled each year.

What can be estimated that most of the prescriptions are filled by people who are “seeking  to improve their quality of life”

This time of year a lot of “drug seekers” are those known as ALLERGY SUFFERS… they seek out antihistamines, cortisone nasal sprays and other substances used to control their allergy symptoms and improve their quality of life.

No matter what disease state or condition/syndrome a person is dealing with.. all too many will seek out some medication(s) to help to control the undesirable symptoms from the disease.. basically.. the person seeks out to improve their quality of life.

Some groups try to draw a line between themselves as being chronic pain pts and those who abuse opiates.

If you take a step backwards and try to look at those who take/use opiates and controlled substances.. are those that take them legally and those who take them illegally.. because our society will not allow them to obtain them legally. Are they all that different ?

Both are typically suffering from depression, anxiety and physical and mental “pain”. Both are trying to “improve”  their quality of life… just what their own opinion/definition of “improve” may be quite different.

Those who are suffering from the mental health issues of addictive personalities.. they have demons in their head and/or monkeys on their back. They are just “seeking” to improve their lives by attempting to silence those demons and monkeys. Their “high” is getting some solitude from those things causing them mental pain.

Those that suffer from chronic pain are also “seeking” their own particular “high”, but their high is to calm the pain that torments them, keeping them from participating in a “normal family life”.

Image result for cartoon i have seen the enemy it is us

IMO, those in the chronic pain community that wants to point fingers at those who our society has labeled as “addicts” and continue to point out “that is not us/me”… it is “them”..

People with mental health issues have always been “looked down upon” ..  just told to “suck it up and get over it”… our health insurance system has normally had poor coverage for seeing mental health professionals.

Is this part of the puritanical thread in our societal fabric that is still part of the “witch hunts” from the late 17th century in our country ?

Is those in the chronic pain community doing themselves any favors by agreeing with the DEA that those with mental health addictive issues are “bad people” and CRIMINALS ?

Recently our previous Surgeon General declared that addiction is a mental health issue and not a moral failing http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vivek-murthy-report-on-drugs-and-alcohol_us_582dce19e4b099512f812e9c

Does it make any sense that two different major Federal agencies and members of the Presidential Cabinet (DOJ & Surgeon General) are on opposite sides of the same coin… in dealing with people that are suffering from chronic conditions that opiates and controlled substance can help people deal with their health issues ?