Rep. Annie Kuster writes: “We’ve started a nationwide conversation on how prescription drugs are spurring this crisis.” With all due respect to Congresswoman Kuster, this “conversation” was started long ago and is merely a reflection of public perception and certainly not an objective conclusion based on any substantial investigation.
Any real investigation would conclude this is an “overdose” rather than “opioid” crisis with little to do with prescribing. Ninety-five percent of those who receive opioids for pain do not develop addiction. Shall all suffer due to hasty and naive conclusions arrived at from statistics such as “4 out of every 5 heroin users had a history of abusing prescription opioids”?
Other statistics are ignored or overlooked. According to the NSDUH, illicit drug use disorder has decreased from 2002-2014 during the same period that abusable prescriptions have quadrupled. Huh?
Probably 100 percent of heroin users are addicted to nicotine and nearly all have abused alcohol. Most have smoked marijuana and some have abused cocaine. Cocaine users are more likely to progress to heroin than prescription opioid users.
Does any of this really matter? Do core addiction issues have anything to do with particular substances?
Forget stats and stakeholders and talk to people actually suffering from addiction. War on drugs, big failure. Got us nowhere. Will the war on prescribing be any different?
I witnessed my uncle needlessly suffer from cancer, his moans from pain keeping me awake at night. Focusing on prescribing does not address core addiction issues and only results in victims such as my uncle.
TOM BARNES
Dover