This whole "opioid crisis" is a farce. People need pain meds. Somehow the politicians have demonized legitimate prescription drugs because of a few junkies who will take anything.
The real issue is the illegal heroin, fentanyl, carfentanyl, and their various derivatives which are flowing into this country like sewer water from China and Mexico.
For some reason the legitimate prescription medication is intentionally getting lumped in with all the illegal stuff and being called a crisis. Yeah, it's a crisis of illegal stuff!
So to all those people who argue that the war on drugs is a big failure, why is it that places like Singapore, China, Malaysia, and many other countries don't have this rampant illegal drug problem? It couldn't be because they don't toy around with users and dealers, could it?
Did you look at the links on Kolodney and the Biased CDC director I put up. The first owns Suboxone clinics the 2nd is blaming his son’s Heroin Habit on Prescription Opioids. When in truth Intractable pain patients don’t share, or are careless with their meds.
Red has a FB page where he archives his articles. FB page https://www.facebook.com/ATIPUSA/
http://nationalpainreport.com/author/redlawhern
Roger doesn’t do FB. Here is 1 of his articles google will bring up more since he is freelance. https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2018/3/10/what-the-krebs-opioid-study-didnt-find
https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2017/12/24/10-myths-about-the-opioid-crisis
If we don’t fight this we will have no pain meds, for me that is Valium, Gastro issues and Opioids don’t mix except for a short time. I’m facing a 2nd thumb surgery in the near future. And Dread it, 1st one didn’t turn out so well.