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.