We are quickly approaching a precipice like many other chronic pain pts. A few months ago, our PCP of almost 30 yrs told us that he is retiring the end of 2026. We have already interviewed a couple of practices only to get “I’m not comfortable prescribing that much opioids – and that was on ME, and what I take is minuscule compared to what Barb takes. For the short term, we have pulled back about looking for a new PCP. Barb is scheduled to have her implanted pump refilled next month and will see if our pain doc will consider writing her oral opioids for her. She has called the office and asked that he would return her call, but I guess that he is to important to return pt’s calls, but we will be able to get to talk to him – eye ball to eye ball – when she goes in to get her pump refilled.
Last month, the independent that we have patronized for the last 8+ yrs was out of one of Barb’s oral opioids and the wholesaler had no inventory. The fellow that owns this independent has another pharmacy in town and they had enough to fill Barb’s med. I called the HQ of the wholesaler he uses and after some back and forth with the staffer at the wholesaler he agreed to tell me about their inventory level on the particular medication that Barb needed. I asked him how many different generic pharmas did they normally stock – NINE DIFFERENT COMPANIES. I asked, how much inventory do you have on hand for the particular med/strength that Barb needed. His answer was – ZERO on all nine pharmas. We are now one month later and between his two pharmacies – they have a total of 10 tablets.
Yesterday I call all four TV station in Louisville,KY. We live in what is called the Metro Louisville, KY area, but we are on the north side of the Ohio river in Indiana. Louisville/Jefferson county is a uni-gov and Louisville is the LARGEST city in the state of KY. All 4 of the major TV stations (ABC, CBS,FOX, NBC) are based in Louisville. All their antennas – in what is called “the antenna farm” which is near where we live is about 500-600ft higher in altitude than Louisville. This gives these TV stations much larger coverage area for their signals. There TV signal reaches an estimated 2-3 million people.
I called each station and asked them if they are getting any calls from people not able to get their pain medications at the local pharmacy. Their answer was universally the same NOPE! Does this suggest why the media only talks the DEA’s talking point(s)?
They all agreed to give me their email address to send them information and below is the email that I send. I marked each each email as HIGH PRIORITY and for me to be notified when the email was opened. Last night I got my first email notice that one of my emails was opened, but it was not from one of the email domains that I had sent. The domain was @hearst.com that the email was opened from. Hearst corp owns the CBS (WLKY) affiliate in Louisville.
I wonder if other chronic painers called their local TV channels and asked the questions “have you received any calls from people not being able to get their pain medications”? What kind of answers would those that did would get?
This is the opioid settlement I spoke with you about, the hyperlink was created by a Kaiser retired nurse and that below the hyperlink is what I got from perplexity.ai about the same settlement. https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/kaiser.pdf
There are an estimated 100 million chronic pain pts and within that number there is a 25-35 million subset of chronic pain pts that are labeled as high impact or intractable chronic pain pts, whose intensity of their pain is at the higher end of the 1-10 pain scale and many healthcare professionals consider a pain intensity > 5 on that scale to be a torturous level of pain.
This is a video that showed up on my facebook page today https://www.facebook.com/kathaav/videos/1125692909317845
I don’t know this woman, but I am a pharmacist and a chronic pain consultant/advocate and she shared it on my FB page today
https://www.facebook.com/pharmaciststeve/
This is not an isolated case, because of that agreement
This is the question that I asked www.perplexity.ai
can you provide a summation of the opioid settlement between 46 state AGs and the three major drug wholesaler?
Certainly. Here is a summation of the opioid settlement between the attorneys general (AGs) of 46 states and the three major drug wholesalers (AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson), with additional context regarding the broader opioid litigation landscape:
Summary of the Settlement
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Parties Involved:
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Settlement Amount:
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Participation:
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Purpose and Use of Funds:
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Non-Financial Terms:
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Effective Date:
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April 2, 2022 was the scheduled effective date for the settlement, following court-ordered consent judgments4.
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Exclusions:
Broader Context
This settlement was part of a larger effort to resolve thousands of lawsuits brought by state and local governments against pharmaceutical companies for their alleged role in fueling the opioid crisis. The settlement with the three major distributors and Johnson & Johnson was valued at $26 billion, with the distributors responsible for $21 billion of that total123. The settlement was designed to provide a stable source of funding for opioid crisis abatement programs across the country.
Key Takeaways
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Historic Settlement: The $21 billion (plus $5 billion from J&J) represents one of the largest civil settlements in U.S. history regarding public health.
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Community Impact: The majority of funds are dedicated to opioid crisis response, treatment, and prevention.
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Industry Oversight: The settlement mandates new transparency and monitoring requirements for opioid distribution.
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No Admission of Liability: The companies did not admit wrongdoing, but agreed to pay to resolve litigation and support communities affected by the opioid epidemic13.
This settlement marked a significant milestone in efforts to address the opioid crisis through large-scale, coordinated legal action and funding for public health initiatives.
- https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/johnson-johnson-drug-distributors-finalize-26b-opioid-settlement-states-join-landmark-deal
- https://www.npr.org/2021/07/21/1018881195/state-attorneys-general-26-billion-opioid-settlement
- https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1082901958/opioid-settlement-johnson-26-billion
- https://www.mckesson.com/about-mckesson/newsroom/press-releases/2022/distributors-approve-opioid-settlement-agreement/
- https://nationalopioidsettlement.com/executive-summary/
- https://www.opioidsettlementtracker.com/globalsettlementtracker
- https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083180735/4-u-s-drug-distributors-agree-to-pay-26b-opioid-settlement
- https://kaco.org/county-information/opioid-settlement/
- https://nashp.org/understanding-opioid-settlement-spending-plans-across-states-key-components-and-approaches/
- https://www.drugwatch.com/opioids/lawsuits/
Filed under: General Problems
So again, I ask why you don’t support ending the war on drugs.
It is that I don’t want to repeal the CSA. Inside the beltway, there are a few facts of life. A agency’s political power is directly related to their budget and it is estimated – since the DEA stopped reporting what they were spending when it approached 100 billion/yr and estimates I see are in the 120 -140 billion/yr. When the SCOTUS ruled last year that the Chevron Doctrine was to be repealed and that meant that no federal agency can create new interpretations/regulations from the federal law that they are in charge of enforcing. Think RED FLAGS for the DEA. Logic suggests that our Fed AG or Congress would declare all those interpretation/regulations that the DEA has added to the CSA would be declared unconstitutional or rescind them. I believe that it has been a year since the SCOTUS made that ruling. Of course, the DEA is a sub-agency of the Fed AG and typically the 535 members of Congress – some 30% + are by education an Attorney. I have not seen a total number of people working on the war on drugs full time or part time. When you consider law enforcement and city/county/state level. Prisons at city/county/state level. Our court system at city/county/state level. (judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, related court staffs) and others. The number of employees across this whole spectrum could be substantial, the number of part timers that are laid off, the number of full timers cut to part timers. The Attorney General and all the attorneys in Congress has not taken any action to rescind the illegal interpretations of the CSA that the DEA has put in place over the last 5 decades. Who believes that one of the members of Congress would introduce a bill to rescind all those illegal interpretations. Could no one is Congress has the “balls” to just introduce a bill? I would put my money on that if someone suggested after the next election, that the community created a avalanche of emails/letter to the 435 members of the House and the 33 -34 members of the Senate that are up for reelection in 2028 – that if Congress does not rescind those illegal interpretations of the CSA, we will vote you out of office! They suggest that there are 100+ million chronic pain pts. I would doubt if the community could get 1 million – ONE PERCENT of the community to send email, letter, phone call to their members of Congress. I would bet that if we knew the truth that 99%+ of the chronic pain community will not do it – for fear that their meds would be taken away – but the path we are on… all your meds are going to be taken away anyway.