Posted on 12/17/2018 11:04:47 AM PST by Kaslin
There is a strange dichotomy taking place in society today. On the one hand, laws against marijuana are being eliminated. People who abuse pot are now able to feed their addiction with an overly generous supply of the drug. For example, in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal, users can purchase up to 2.5 ounces every two weeks. This is enough to be stoned every day. Once you have a prescription, you can refill it for an entire year without going back to renew the prescription. It’s easy to get a prescription in most states that have legalized medical marijuana, just inform a doctor you have pain. And if you live in a state like California that has legalized recreational marijuana, there aren’t even any limits on how much you can buy (just how much you can have on hand).
In contrast, opioids, which are commonly prescribed for chronic pain and have been legal for years (with the exception of heroin and some fentanyl) are becoming increasingly restricted. Legitimate chronic pain sufferers who depend on them to reduce their pain are finding themselves going days without any medication or undermedicated as a result of the new crackdown. It began because people were overdosing on opioids.
By October of this year, 33 states had passed laws limiting opioid prescriptions. They limit the supply a doctor may prescribe to seven days or less. This exponentially increases problems with timely refilling prescriptions. One chronic pain sufferer complained, “The insurance companies are lying to their own subscribers in the Prior Auth Dept, ignoring, transferring to dead lines, long appeals that go nowhere, on & on….” It also means more co-pays. Some states are now requiring doctors and pharmacists to take a course on opioids.
Many states have limited the maximum dose as well. Federal opioid prescribing guidelines recommend doctors use caution in prescribing above 50 MME/day. But many patients need 90 MME/day or higher. In Arizona, patients are limited to 90 MME/day. There are exceptions for some types of illnesses — but not chronic pain. For those sufferers, they can only receive a higher dose if their doctor consults with a board-certified pain specialist.
One woman in Arizona who suffers from chronic pain said her opioid dose was lowered from 100 MME/day to 90 MME/day as a result of the new laws. She said her pain has been "terrible" ever since. "It just hurts," she said. "I don't want to walk, I pretty much don't want to do anything."
Two medical associations in Arizona warned before the law was passed, “We strongly oppose putting any kind of dose-strength limitation in state law. ... Every patient is unique and there is no universally accepted threshold for what is acceptable for every situation. Some complex pain patients can be properly cared for and managed by appropriate providers with higher dosages that allow them to manage pain and be active members of society and our economy.”
Another new law requires pharmacists to check and make sure patients aren’t doctor hopping — doubling up on prescriptions. Any accidental overlap between prescriptions hurts the patient, who is humiliated at the pharmacy when caught. Senior citizens are treated by pharmaceutical staff like common criminals.
Doctors risk sanctions if they don’t comply with the new laws. As a result, fewer doctors are prescribing opioids. This is making it more difficult for patients to find doctors. After the laws were passed, doctors reported “feeling pressure to lower patient doses, even for patients who have been on stable regimens of opioids for years without trouble.”
Dr. Julian Grove, president of the Arizona Pain Society, says, "A lot of practitioners are reducing opioid medications, not from a clinical perspective, but more from a legal and regulatory perspective for fear of investigation. No practitioner wants to be the highest prescriber." Even doctors that specialize in pain management are feeling pressure to reduce dosages.
Psychiatrist Sally Satel, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says the problem traces back to guidelines put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2016. The guidelines were not meant to apply to pain specialists, nor were they to be applied as a blanket policy to every patient. "There is no mandate to reduce doses on people who have been doing well," Satel said.
Ironically, chronic pain sufferers are told to switch to medical marijuana to ease their pain — but it doesn’t work for everyone’s pain. A recent Australian study found that marijuana does little for pain.
The reality, according to the National Pain Report, is “America’s so-called ‘opioid epidemic’ is caused by street drugs (some of them diverted prescription drugs) rather than by prescriptions made by doctors to chronic pain patients.” More people die from illegal opioids than prescription opioids. Opioid prescriptions were already decreasing before the crackdown started. In Arizona, prescriptions decreased every year since 2013, a 10 percent decrease total. &
And just because a few doctors overprescribed opioids does not mean everyone should be treated like a dangerous addict at risk of overdosing. One size does not fit all. Someone who has been taking a higher dosage of prescription opioids for years without incident should be allowed to continue.
Over 11 percent of the population suffers from chronic pain. It is cruel and bad medical science to prevent this segment from the population from getting the only relief that works for many of them. The laws need to be changed to allow those legitimately suffering to access adequate amounts of prescription opioids, without risk to their doctor or pharmacist. It makes no sense as we’re relaxing the laws prohibiting marijuana.
Zactly....
The war on drugs, of course, was a result of prohibition's repeal. FDR's administration felt it would be overly cruel to send those valuable federal employees out in a private sector suffering massive unemployment at the time, so a new opportunity was created. And with it, state soverignity was ursurped.
Have you noticed that you can read two week old articles on FR now and can peruse the entire site daily postings in an hour or so.
There was a time you couldn’t begin to read everything on FR, I wonder why that is so now?
.
The 2016 purge!
Most of the conservatives never came back, but the clowns filled the vacuum.
Yup, a few rich liberals can smoke dope and make a ton of money, but the 90+% that have to work for someone else are borderline unemployable.
They don't want to arrest the dealer silly, the Pharmacist is competition.
Pot is not addictive.
I agree. I have little time for these habitual control freaks who want to control everything Americans do. Just like the deranged Democrat control freaks. If someone is in pain, give them what they need for cripes sake.
Well your wife is clearly a dangerous criminal.☺
Are ya sure ya wouldn't want to leave it up to all these Democrat like control freaks to decide how much pain your wife should endure?
No I suspect you are choosing to believe without evidence. It has been proven with extensive evidence the government has lied about gun related deaths. It has been proven with extensive evidence the government has lied about alcohol related deaths. It has been proven the government has lied about crimes commited by illegal immigrants. This pattern of lies, deception, cooking numbers, bogus numbers and just ouright making shit up is so rampant any reasonable person would be immediately suspect of goverment reporting of opioid deaths. This is why I asked. Where are you getting these numbers? What is the source of this data? If the source is traced to government then its simply not credible.
A nurse told me about an individual that ate too much edibles and would pass out and then wake up and think they were dead. Is that Psychotic? Lots of pot users have paranoid episodes. Is that Psychotic? I am not that much of a skeptic but I do not that it is completely harmless like many addicts are.
do you understand the difference between an anecdote passed along by an uneducated layman and research with defined terms and confirmed results? Apparently you don’t; but you make gross generalizations and pose as someone who knows what they re talking about.
Pot does not cause psychosis and it is not addictive.
So do people on opioids. By the way I was on hydrocodone for years. I don’t like the way I felt. Now I take prescription strength ibuprofen. I’m more alert and residual pain level is lower.
“Opioids were involved in 42,249 overdose deaths in 2016 (66.4% of all drug overdose deaths).The numbers have gone up since then too”
So what. I am that guy. So what. Because one person poops his pants the whole world should wear diapers? Who cares. If people choose to destroy their meaningless lives the rest are to be denied adequate pain management or must suffer awful pain? If they choose to destroy their lives, let them.
There is an oral addiction that even cigarette smokers have.
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20110301/marijuana-use-linked-to-risk-of-psychotic-symptoms
https://www.livescience.com/50794-marijuana-intoxication-delusions-psychotic-symptoms.html
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=psychosis+form+pot&ia=web
Search is your friend. But I suspect you will find things wrong with Webmed also. Are you high?
“Never heard of death by marijuana overdose”
Already documented in Colorado, several now.”
Wow. Several. Several people died choking on food today. People die walking into traffic texting. No one is immortal and no one lives forever. It is impossible to mitigate the risks and choices of living.
“Now that I have chronic pain I understand. No one cares.”
The VA called and told me there is a nationwide shortage of morphine so they are cutting me off.
The VA prescribed me opioids years ago. After a few days I stopped it myself. Felt like crap and I told them to never prescribe that crap for me again. I will deal with the pain and have for almost 20 years.
I take prescription strength naproxen when needed myself.
“Already documented in Colorado, several now.”
Fake news. You can’t trust the media just because they’re saying something you want to believe.
Vaping instead of smoking greatly reduces, perhaps even eliminates, dangers of the toxic and carcinogenic compounds that are released through combustion. In the case of vaping, temperatures used are kept below the level needed for combustion.
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