Drug Firms Trying to Make Painkillers Less Abusable

Washington Post ^ | June 14, 2004 | Marc Kaufman

[weekendwarrior]

Millions of Americans suffer from intense but poorly treated pain that could be helped by today's broad array of morphine-based prescription painkillers. Millions of others abuse prescription narcotics, using them to get high rather than to ease pain, and many become addicted. This dilemma -- that legal painkillers are both under-used and abused -- has become a pressing issue since the introduction in the mid-1990s of the extended-release opioid OxyContin...."

[weekendwarrior]

GREAT ARTICLE. ENJOY.

[Paleo Conservative]

Harvard Medical School professor Clifford Woolf has proposed adding capsaicin, the substance that makes chili peppers hot, to the painkiller in sequestered form. The drug would deliver the expected relief, but it would give an abuser snorting, chewing or injecting it a very unpleasant surprise.

[gargoyle]

...GREAT ARTICLE. The war on drugs will not be won. Folks that abuse drugs do it for euphoric effects. Making all drugs available to reduce suffering, is the right direction. To make someone a criminal for taking an alternative "medicine" because it's against the law is wrong. Let's change the laws...

[bornintexas]

The link will not work for me. It keeps coming up "error-washington post."

[Paleo Conservative]

Folks that abuse drugs do it for euphoric effects.

And they will kill and destroy property to get those drugs. Making pharmaceutical pain medications tamper resistant or tamper proof will cut down on burglaries and robberies of drug stores.

[Know your rights]

Making pharmaceutical pain medications tamper resistant or tamper proof will cut down on burglaries and robberies of drug stores.

So would legalizing those drugs ... without misdirecting research resources that could be used to actually help sick people.

[Paleo Conservative]

So would legalizing those drugs ... without misdirecting research resources that could be used to actually help sick people.

I doubt it. Legalized narcotics haven't lowered crime in countries like Switzerland that tried decriminalizing narcotic use. Low priced freely available drugs encourage drug abuse. While illegality, social stigma, and high prices may not deter hardcore addicts, they do help deter non users from becoming users.

[Know your rights]

What is the proof for these claims?

[Know your rights]

Making pharmaceutical pain medications tamper resistant or tamper proof will cut down on burglaries and robberies of drug stores.

So would legalizing those drugs ... without misdirecting research resources that could be used to actually help sick people.

I doubt it. Legalized narcotics haven't lowered crime in countries like Switzerland that tried decriminalizing narcotic use.

"Decriminalizing" doesn't make drugs any easier to get. Why would anyone rob a drug store for a drug they could buy legally?

[gargoyle]

...Heard about the "black market"? I hope for a solution to this war. Soon. We have more important "crimes" to win, without obvious settled domestic distractions...

[Know your rights]

Heard about the "black market"?

Yes; it's a much nastier business than a legal and regulated market.

[rickyc]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38980-2004Jun13.html

[Indie]

Legalize

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