Sunday, April 28, 2019

DEA, Budget Dollars, and Opioids

Gee, who'dathunk?  Manipulating "overdose death" numbers?

"Controlled Prescription Drugs (CPDs) ... are still responsible for the most drug-involved overdose deaths and are the second most commonly abused substance in the United States."  --DEA, (which is looking for budget money!)
OK, then, I highlighted the worm-language for you.  Why is THAT language wormy?

...First, given the non-stop barrage of opioid crisis stories, most of which have been dead wrong, many people will automatically assume that "controlled prescription drugs" refers to prescription opioids. It does not. Other classes of drugs are also controlled and they are lumped together with opioids:...
The killer drugs are fentanyl and heroin, which together account for THREE TIMES the deaths related to prescription opioids (~45,000/year vs. ~15,000/year.)   You don't get scrips for heroin and fentanyl from your friendly local doctor.

In fact, legitimate opioid scrips have gone down every year since 2012.

...The harder it becomes to get pills, the more people flock to heroin and fentanyl. No matter how the DEA plays funny statistics games, combines drugs into groups that make no sense, or buries inconvenient captions in tiny print under graphs, we are left with 164 pages of sleight-of-hand and spin. ....  
So yah, if you're in pain, tough patooties.  Offer it up, or something--and if the 'something' is carfentanyl or horse, you can help DEA get more budget money!!  Makes you proud, eh?

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