Posted on 11/02/2017 4:07:32 PM PDT by artichokegrower
Because there’s no hook for China to be on. When our own doctors are mass producing addicts at a rate that China couldn’t even dream possible China simply does not rate. If we ended all Chinese illegal importation of opioids entirely the net effect on the number of people would be insignificant to unmeasurable. All the street junkies could cease to exist tomorrow and you’d still have massive numbers of opioid addicts in the country. It’s like back in the 90s when the EPA admitted that 90% of vehicular pollution came from 10% of vehicles that were never called upon to pass emissions testing and their proposed solution was to reduce the allowable emissions for tested vehicles. Worrying about Chinese fentanyl is ignoring the actual problem.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-than-one-third-americans-prescribed-opioids-in-2015/
https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/prescribing.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/americas-heroin-epidemic/opioid-prescriptions-are-down-not-enough-cdc-finds-n780041
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/15/americans-use-far-more-opioids-than-anyone-else-in-the-world/?utm_term=.acbd08b4c751
https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/index.html
The numbers vary a bit, but they’re way higher than they should be in any country whose doctors actually followed their oath.
I’ve worked in the sick-care industry for 20 years. I know all about pill-pushing MDs.
I also know how to recognize fake news when I see it.
Over the course of that 20 years, I’ve personally been acquainted with exactly three people who were/are abusing opioid pain medicine. Two of them got hooked as a result of spinal surgeries, the other one was just a hooker.
But why would anyone be afraid to admit they’re shielding China from blame? Why not just come out and state the agenda to sympathize with China’s war against the US?
From link in article:
“The rise of fentanyl in the United States can be traced back to China’s large chemical and pharmaceutical industries, which manufacture vast quantities of the drug and its analogues to export to the western hemisphere with little regulatory oversight.”
The problem really isn’t the patients abusing it. Some fault lies in the patients demanding quick fixes, we as a people no longer want to hear from our doctor things like “lose 30 pounds” or “stay home and rest for a week or so”, we want some pills, we expect to come out of that office with a scrip to make it all go away.
And we’ve trained our doctors to that. My wife screwed up her shoulder at the beginning of the year. She goes to the doctor, say her shoulder hurts all the time, she can’t do anything without pain, she can’t even do nothing without pain (the drag of her arm hurt the shoulder). Doctor tries to write her a scrip for Vicodin. She says she doesn’t want painkillers, she wants to fix the problem. 5 months she’s going back and forth with her doctor as he sends her on one goose chase after another all with “if that doesn’t work we’ll give you Vicodin” never does he actually try to diagnose the problem, it’s all quick fixes, massage therapy, stuff like that. Finally the doctor refers her to a rheumatologist, he pokes her around says “why are you here? you don’t have any rheumatoid problem”. She tells him the story, he pokes around a bit, has her move her arm around, pokes some more. Finally he says these muscles are really weak, you overworked them, this strained these ligaments, and you keep reaggravating them because the muscles are week, you need physical therapy and maybe some anti-inflamatoids to help the healing jump start. 2 months of intense PT later her shoulder is 80% better, she’s off the PT but still doing daily exercises. And she’s not hooked on Vicodin, which she would have been had she taken the original scrip because there was no attempt to fix the problem, so she would have just kept reaggravating the injury for the rest of her life.
You don’t need to abuse opioids to become an addict, you just need a @#$%y doctor that prescribes them without ever bothering to diagnose the problem.
They aren’t bothering to notice why they come across. PRESCRIPTIONS. Remember it’s a LEGAL (with scrip) drug. The #1 importers of fentanyl into this country are the parcel post companies. UPS, FedEx, DHL. the rise of fentanyl, just like the rise of Oxy can be traced to the PRESCRIPTION PADS of America.
But why do you disregard the origin of at least 50% of the problem—China’s intent?
Because that isn’t 50% of the problem, it’s maybe 1% of the problem. You’re complaining about some of the snow on the very top of the iceberg, but it’s the iceberg that’s gonna sink the ship.
You have a right to believe falsehoods. You also have a right to sympathize in your heart and mind with China’s anti-American position. But you don’t have a right to join them in their war against our country. So don’t do it.
It’s not a falsehood. And I’m not sympathizing with anybody’s anti-American anything. And I’m not joining in a fight against us. I’m pointing to the cold hard MATH which you keep studiously ignoring. 1/3 of the country is being prescribed opioids, our DOCTORS have put 1/3 of the country on a path to addiction. THAT’S the problem, and no matter how many time you chant China they still won’t be putting as many people on fentanyl as our medical profession.
The facts are the facts, and the fact is anybody freaking out about China when it’s YOUR doctor doing the deed is ignoring reality. You have the right to be full of #$%^ But you don’t have the right to tell me it’s my problem that you smell bad. So don’t do it.
Wow, that one really got to you.
Again, as I said already, I agree we should tighten things up on the prescribing end.
But what’s your opinion on the actions of China? That we just ignore them?
It didn’t get to me at all. Ad hominems show you lack fact, they prove me right, and you the fool.
My opinion on the China “actions” is that they simply do not rate. Here’s the simple facts:
https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/Factsheet-opioids-061516.pdf
On an average day in the U.S.:
More than 650,000 opioid prescriptions dispensed
3,900 people initiate nonmedical use of prescription opioids
580 people initiate heroin use
78 people die from an opioid-related overdose
Even if you assume ALL of the “nonmedical” prescription use AND heroin use is tied to Chinese fentalyl (which is highly unlikely) it’s still out numbered more than 200 to 1 by the prescriptions turning people into junkies. It simply does not matter, worrying about China is obsessing on the molehill when there’s a mountain behind. We need to get our own house in order, we’re the ones that advertise opioids on TV as the wonder drug that works wonders, we prescribe them for EVERYTHING, we are the ones making this problem. China’s finding fertile ground for their fentanyl because we made it. If we got ourselves to reasonable and non-self destructive levels of opioid prescription China would suddenly find a lot less Americans interested in their fentanyl. Heroin was a dead drug 20 years ago, nobody used it, then came Oxy, now we’re losing generations to it.
We made this bed, China at best is adding a throw pillow. And we need to fix the damn bed.
They don't import it like the Mexican cartels do. It comes in some of those millions of containers that arrive at our sea ports daily. Most of the time the owners and shippers have no idea their shipments include the contraband.
They way you quickly shut this down is to inform China that starting on December first ALL their shipments will be subject to full inspection, including opening of individual packages.
Also notify them that we have no intention of hiring a single additional inspector or K-9 to conduct the inspections.
Those parking rates at the port are going to get quite expensive with their ships sitting there for weeks.
When a major world power wages war against us, we should ignore it?
When the AMA is waging the exact same war against us and doing 200 times as much damage China simply doesn’t rate.
I think your emotions in this discussion show a strong bias. Whether your bias is pro-China, anti-America, anti American doctors or anti doctors in general, it’s not clear.
But your bias likely swings your assessment of “damage” about 200-400 times in the wrong direction.
No emotion, and no bias. MATH. Look at the numbers I posted again, who’s is the bigger enemy doing more damage to America? 650,000 a day? Or a fraction of 3900 hundred a day? MATH, you either can do it or you can’t. Face it, if that was some other country giving 650,000 Americans a day highly addictive brain deadening drugs you’d want to invade their asses right away, and you’d be right. The fact that you think China is the problem is frankly just plain dumb. DO THE MATH.
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