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.
Government needs to stay out of all vice but they won’t because it makes government and other entities money hand over fist.
That said, the "strange dichotomy" posited by the article is rank nonsense - marijuana is vastly less dangerous than opioids.
“Never heard of death by marijuana overdose”
Already documented in Colorado, several now.
Yes, the war on marijuana is make-work for many government employees.
Already documented in Colorado, several now.
I call BS ... let's see this alleged documentation.
I would disagree. A conservative also must use common sense and isn't above using govenment as a necessary evil in extreme cases. What you are describing is libertarianism or anarchy which in extreme cases are the same thing.
Especially on a repeated basis over many years.
It may cause health issues related to taking in that smoke or you might be one of the lucky ones who go their entire life without experiencing those issues. But I think it has affects on everyone over repeated usage for many years. Especially when you start becoming more sedentary and less active.
I know I tire easily now that I'm 66, and have to take several breaks when exerting energy. Walking has become more difficult as well. But a lot of that has been my becoming inactive after I hit about 35 and working at a computer all day, as I have for decades.
Great career, but I needed to balance that time behind the computer with more physical activity.
Impossible to ping everyone who’s said this on this thread so I’ll address this to the OP implying “all”:
This opinion piece doesn’t advocate getting rid of MJ in favor of opioids, or the reverse. I’ve read it twice to be sure.
It’s saying that since we are relaxing laws about MJ we shouldn’t restrict them for opioids. So if anything it’s saying the reverse of those who feel the author is saying MJ should be restricted like opioids. So IOW the author seems to be advocating both should be unrestricted or at least not as restricted as now.
Also the author is saying they (opiods) should in fact *not* be restricted, or at least as unrestricted as MJ is becoming. So all those on this thread suffering with chronic pain who apparently need opiods to manage it shouldn’t feel threatened by this piece either.
IOW, seems like a lot of arguing going on on this thread for nothing.
Are the extreme cases regulating what people do to their own body, on their own time, and on their own dime?
Obviously no one should be driving stoned any more than driving drunk, etc; and they are unemployable because they can’t refrain from something - be it booze, cigarettes, weed or coffee- to hell with them, let ‘em starve.
But if someone makes it their business to interfere with a person who wants a drink, or a bong hit, or simply relief from a level of pain *THEY* consider too high, then in my opinion that person is not a conservative, they are an authoritarian who merely wants to use the state to enforce their particular beliefs.
Respectfully
Is there an "extreme case" here?
Yep. Good article.
‘the stoner FR contingent comes flooding out of their bong resin drenched hidey-holes to bravely conquer another thread in 3 . . 2 . . . 1 . .’
yeah, ok; whatever you say, Cotton Mather...
Yep.
Surely you don't mean that?
I think it is more that the author is making any sort of equivalency between them. Marijuana should be treated like booze- legal but with the obvious and logical restrictions (driving, etc.).
Opioids are an issue not of recreation but of medication.
Although some, such as myself, would say ‘legalize it; if some losers die it’s still worth it for people in extreme pain to be able to get relief’, there is more of a societal framework for at least treating them as medicine, although they should be a medicine readily available to anyone in pain.
So my objections to the article are really calling for a division of question- STOP treating cannabis as anything other than recreational *AND* get the damned idiots who think that other humans should have to suffer pain named and shamed and revealed as the despicable ‘humans’ they are.
“I am sick of decent people having to suffer because of lowlifes who would be addicts”
The real lowlifes are the bureaucrats, federal agents, prosecutors, politicians and those who support near prohibition of opiates for patients with chronic pain.
Leave the addicts alone, they don’t have anything to do with passage and enforcement of severe restrictions on opioid prescribing. The addicts are merely scape goats for politicians and bureaucrats.
Opioid overdose deaths have gone up while opioid prescriptions have gone down since they peaked around 2013.
Heroin, fentanyl prices have declined significantly. But, it’s easier to bust a doctor or pharmacist than a drug dealer; it’s the paper trail of course. When raided, doctors and pharmacists don’t shoot back (at least for now).
““Opioids were involved in 42,249 overdose deaths in 2016 (66.4% of all drug overdose deaths).””
How many of those OD deaths were caused by Vicodin?
No Shiite.
I cannot explain the level of pain or frustration to anyone when it comes to a “Good Night” of grinding my teeth or after doing simple house chores the joy of feeling the burn in my shoulder for days afterward.
And at this point it is more about the pain from the effects of bruxism, which no one gives a damn about.....or they have some morally superior alternative about their super hero status....
Good times for sure.....
I’d love to drop one week of my bruxism on any person so they can enjoy.....
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