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OxyContin Billionaire Patents Drug To Treat Opioid Addiction (cbsnews.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the corrupted-by-money dept.

Richard Sackler, the billionaire businessman behind Purdue Pharma, has patented a new drug to help treat opioid addiction (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). The news of the patented form of buprenorphine, a mild opioid that is used to ease withdrawal symptoms, comes as Colorado's attorney general is suing the OxyContin creator for profiting from opioid addictions. Some now believe that Sackler and his family, who owns Purdue Pharma, will be trying to profit from the antidote. The Washington Post reports: The lawsuit claims Purdue Pharma L.P. and Purdue Pharma Inc. deluded doctors and patients in Colorado about the potential for addiction with prescription opioids and continued to push the drugs. And it comes amid news that the company's former chairman and president, Richard Sackler, has patented a new drug to help wean addicts from opioids. "Purdue's habit-forming medications coupled with their reckless marketing have robbed children of their parents, families of their sons and daughters, and destroyed the lives of our friends, neighbors, and co-workers," Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman said Thursday in a statement. "While no amount of money can bring back loved ones, it can compensate for the enormous costs brought about by Purdue's intentional misconduct."

The lawsuit states that Purdue Pharma "downplayed the risk of addiction associated with opioids," "exaggerated the benefits" and "advised health care professionals that they were violating their Hippocratic Oath and failing their patients unless they treated pain symptoms with opioids," according to the statement from the Colorado attorney general's office. But Purdue Pharma "vigorously" denied the accusations Friday in a statement to The Washington Post, saying that although it shares "the state's concern about the opioid crisis," it did not mislead health-care providers about prescription opioids. "The state claims Purdue acted improperly by communicating with prescribers about scientific and medical information that FDA has expressly considered and continues to approve," a spokesman for Purdue Pharma said in the statement. "We believe it is inappropriate for the state to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the regulatory, scientific and medical experts at FDA." The report makes note of the patent's description, which acknowledges the risk of addiction associated with opioids and states that the drug could be used both in drug replacement therapy and pain management.

120 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Drug lords... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are a multi-billion drug lord, you are called "big pharma". If after a while your product (Heroin, Cocaine etc) is banned, you switch to something else and the "evil" drug lords that are not big enough to be called "big pharma" take over those products.
    Getting rich by both getting your users addicted and also selling them treatment is a further step in this theatre of the absurd we live in...

    1. Re: Drug lords... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Right we should ignore personal responsibility here and only blame the pushers. Everyone is a victim right?

    2. Re:Drug lords... by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not a fan of making drugs illegal at all, but I'll take "big pharma" over the drug cartels. You end up with people consuming drugs and ruining their own lives either way, but at least "big pharma" isn't leaving a pile of extra corpses with Colombian neckties lying around.

    3. Re: Drug lords... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yup.

      Meanwhile in Colorado, my wife had back surgery and the Dr. is so paranoid of being labeled a pusher that he tried to prescribe ibuprofen as her only post OP painkiller.

    4. Re:Drug lords... by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Sure. It doesn't change the fact that the "alternatives" they prescribe rather than opioids still don't actually work for most.

    5. Re:Drug lords... by shaitand · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not sure I would. People die all the time for all sorts of reasons. columbian neckties are a relatively tiny statistic. Big pharma jacking up costs and reducing availability of medication on a mass global scale is responsible for millions of deaths and billions of people being impoverished because of the additional costs to their healthcare.

      Ditch big pharma, fund drug development at the fed tap managed by a private non-profit with a board of medical researchers and with all staff researchers paid 250k/yr(adjusted over time to keep them in the 1%) and outsource the actual production of medications to anyone and everyone who wants to do it with FDA oversight of quality control much like food production but not on distribution or consumption.

      Breaks big pharma and leaves plenty of incentive in the field, just not the get rich screwing people kind or the slow to size of government kind.

    6. Re:Drug lords... by AmazingRuss · · Score: 1

      When buying politicians stops working, all bets are off though.

    7. Re: Drug lords... by sjames · · Score: 2

      In cases where the victim received every assurance from a certified medical professional that it would be just fine, yes.

      Especially when we have law enforcement practicing medicine without a license and refusing to allow the resulting addictions to be treated as a complication to be treated medically.

    8. Re: Drug lords... by sjames · · Score: 3, Informative

      More likely, you are the shill. Doctors are feeling increasing pressure (again) not to prescribe opiates even where they are clearly called for.

      Go away popo, you're neither qualified nor licensed to make this decision.

    9. Re:Drug lords... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It's great when we can have ${evil_actor_with_catchy_name} to blame. But rather remember that each of those banned substances represented some of the best medication available to us at the time. Medicine abuse isn't the fault of ${evil_actor_with_catchy_name} but rather a long list of groups within the Medical Industrial Complex.

      If this is theater then buy me another ticket. Lift would be quite a bit worse without "big pharma".

    10. Re:Drug lords... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Tell that to the families of those lost in Kentucky and West Virginia from Opoid addiction?

      Better yet tell that to the families of those who died due to denied treatment from the lack of insurance thanks to big pharma endless needing profits?

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    11. Re:Drug lords... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      How big a bribe does it take to be appointed as one of the staff researchers? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    12. Re:Drug lords... by lenski · · Score: 1

      If the manufacturers and developers had been honest with prescribers, making it clear to the prescribers and in turn the potential patients that addiction is a real possibility and must be managed as carefully as the originating pain condition, then the whole discussion would have been far different. Opiates are a powerful tool but have important downsides which ${evil_actor_with_catchy_name} worked diligently and to a large extent, successfully, to hide.

      Life would be quite a bit better if "big pharma" were managed by responsible people rather than evil actors.

    13. Re:Drug lords... by bjwest · · Score: 1

      I'm not a fan of making drugs illegal at all, but I'll take "big pharma" over the drug cartels..

      You do realize the reason we have the drug cartels is because the drugs they provide are illegal, right? Without the criminalization of these drugs, you would have legitimate business with legitimate employees, not gun toting, necktie creating thugs.

      --

      --- Keep the choice with the user..
    14. Re: Drug lords... by LordWabbit2 · · Score: 2

      That may be true, but when the person you love is in agony you have to start wondering who exactly IS qualified, why certain decisions were made and why they are being changed AGAIN. I personally know of two people who tried alternative cures for cancer and both are still walking around when they should have died ages ago. Not saying it cured them, because they were also doing normal chemo etc. but who knows? The people in charge are clearly fucking clueless or self serving. Personally, I think they are getting laws changed to suit their own agenda, and not for the public good. Hemp (not weed) is a prime example, you can't get high on it, but it got banned along with weed, it was highly durable, it was comfortable and you could grow it in your backyard.

      --
      There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
    15. Re:Drug lords... by LordWabbit2 · · Score: 2

      Thank you, the reason the drug cartels exist is because "Big Pharma" changed the laws and outlawed drugs that worked perfectly well and "replaced" them with "safer" drugs. Turns out they were still the same old drugs they replaced, but this time they got royalties. My wife has always advocated banning alcohol instead of weed. Alcohol causes a LOT more death and misery and broken families than some guy smoking a joint. Of course alcohol is too easy to make, it's NEVER going to go away, but then neither is weed, heroine, morphine and all the other natural drugs. In my mind the only major leap forward in medication was penicillin, it stopped people from dying from an infected splinter, but they fucked that up as well by giving it to fucking everything so now we have super resistant bugs. Thanks to all the fucking EXPERTS.

      --
      There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
    16. Re: Drug lords... by sjames · · Score: 2

      Medicine is still art as well as science and doctors are far from perfect. But I do know that cops who have never even met your loved one and legislators who show no sign of ever having felt pain worse than a paper cut (neither apparently care if people scream in agony for a week) are not remotely qualified to make the decision.

    17. Re: Drug lords... by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I had something happen to me like this. I had some surgery last year that was notorious for being really goddamn painful. I agreed only on the condition that the doc implement a pain management plan. Essentially Oxycontin for 4 weeks followed by 2 weeks of tapering off. After the surgery, a hospital ADMINISTRATOR decided that they where going to block sending me home with the meds or a script for them due to controversies in the media. I ended up in stupid amounts of bleeding everywhere pain at my parents house, and fortunately my dad had some pills lying around to get me through the night and in the morning I went to the GP who was absolutely furious that they did THAT procedure on me without letting me have pain killer. In fact the GP told me his usual recomendation for that particular procedure is a week or two INPATIENT recovery on morphine and possibly Ketamine if the morphine isn't cutting it.

      I was incredibly tempted to ask my lawyer to file suit against the hospital. My surgical consent was ONLY given on the condition of adequate pain relief, and some fuck-head business suit decided to override the anaesthesiologists judgement. Worst of all Insurance threatened not to cover it, because in their view that particular procedure is irregular without adequate pain relief. Fortunately the Hospital itself smoothed that nonsense out for me.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    18. Re: Drug lords... by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's a crock of shit. Doctors are so afraid of prescribing opiates, that the pain clinic I goto is now shutting down. The wait for a new pain clinic another 85km away(the one I went to was 30km away), the waiting list for the 1st appointment is now 17 months. That left me in one hell of a spot, because my neurologist handed my pain treatment off to them while she continued to monitor my spine damage(broke my back in two spots about a decade back now). Let me make it clear, testicular torsion rated at a 7 out of 10 on the pain scale in my book when I was a teen. That's when my nut swelled up to the size of an apple. The two shattered vertebra that sliced into my spine, is a 9 or 10 out of 10 nearly all the time. The damage is bad enough I have a baclofen pump to reduce the muscle spasms, cramps, and loss of motor control. Luckily my neurologist had no problems picking up the prescriptions I was on, or replacing the ampules every 2-3 months.

      I'm not alone in this. It's absolutely rife in Canada and the US over junkies causing those of us with long-term pain control use problems. The whole "opioid epidemic" is hurting those of us the most, who need pain management. The ONLY way I function is by having something that will suppress the pain enough that I can work(even then I take a long term pill, and a short-term pill for breakthrough pain), and I'd rather work then not even being able to get out of bed, being on welfare/disability and other forms of social assistance. Read this article. Chronic pain patients are the ones being most fucked over by all the hand wringing of habitual drug abusers popping themselves off with illicit drugs, laced with heavier drugs.

      The people I know who have serious chronic pain? The ones that are using opiates so they can just function day-to-day? There's an awful lot of "well if they cut me off, what's the easiest way to commit suicide" going around. Those are people who suffer from chronic migraines(I have those too), to the people who've had serious spine injuries, or other issues related to diseases or complications like diabetics that have severe nerve damage to their feet/hands due to poor blood circulation. Again, read that article. The people who are saying "you don't need those drugs" are the ones who don't know what constant, unbearable pain is like. They simply think "you'll get over it."

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    19. Re: Drug lords... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I currently suffer from chronic pain after three back surgeries plus i have a neurological disorder that is still being diagnosed. I have taken many forms of legal pain medication including 5 years of fentanyl 100mg patches. For a long time the pain medication did help but as years go by it stopped being effective and caused more problems. I attended a program at the Cleveland clinic where they teach you manage pain without opioids. I still continue to suffer but I'm much better than where i was a year ago. It is programs like this that can help people but they are expensive and its takes anywhere from 3 weeks to 5 weeks to complete the program. While yes some people do relapse, most do not. My life is much better without the pain meds but ill never return to work because of my medical conditions. I urge anyone with chronic pain to look into such programs, there are several offered across the US.

      -Geekpoet

    20. Re:Drug lords... by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      The whole idea is that when the drug would be free to be made by "small pharma" the "big pharma" has it declared illegal or no longer prescribed, preferably just outright illegal, which leads to the drug cartels.

      Then there's less competition on the open market and big pharma can have the government fight their competition.

      why do you think they come up with a new opioid every x years?

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    21. Re:Drug lords... by StikyPad · · Score: 2, Informative

      Drugs in general, and opiods in particular, are not the problem. Drug abuse is a symptom of deeper issues like isolation, depression, and hopelessness. It's literally self-medicating. This is not an epidemic among healthy, well-adjusted adults with stable incomes and functional social support networks. There is some of that, to be sure, but not an epidemic. It's impoverished areas of the country among people who have given up and feel left behind that are hardest hit. And again, drug abuse is a symptom of that.

      The overwhelming majority of people don't become addicted to their prescription painkillers. All available evidence supports this. Of course corporations are greedy, and they need regulation, but opiods are the best treatment currently available for pain management, and if you've ever needed them, you know they are the difference between agony and relief. Limiting their availability or doctors' ability and discretion in prescribing only harms people who genuinely need them. Addicts will find a way regardless. Should we have support systems in place for those who do? Absolutely. But demonizing the supply side misses the point entirely.

      For some reason, most people understand that brewers and distillers -- despite their much heavier advertising and glamorizing of alcohol than, say, opioid manufacturers of fentanyl -- don't create alcoholics, and that prohibition just made the problem worse, but everyone wants to believe that it's completely different this time. Because opiods. Yes, it's a compelling and easy-to-believe story that "big pharma" is responsible, but it doesn't really make sense at the end of the day. If manufacturers and prescribers were responsible, we might expect to see people with the most access to healthcare and the most dollars to spend have the most problems as a percentage of the respective demographics, but the reverse is true.

      Nobody wants to talk about the socioeconomic drivers of addiction, because it means a) admitting a problem with the social structure in our country, b) it's hard to generate the same emotion and outrage about underprivileged segments of society as a story about a big bad enemy does and c) it's a much more difficult problem to solve.

      I came across this in looking for supporting data, and it seems to be a good description of the real problem: https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/a...

      See also:
      https://jamanetwork.com/journa...
      https://www.drugabuse.gov/abou...

      --
      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    22. Re:Drug lords... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      If the manufacturers and developers had been honest with prescribers, making it clear to the prescribers

      Implying that a) it was known, and b) that the outcome is any different.

      We have a whole world of pharmaceuticals even relatively new ones where the addictive effects are known and that hasn't changed the fact that addiction is happening and that a black market has also been developed for them.

      Opiates are a powerful tool but have important downsides which ${evil_actor_with_catchy_name} worked diligently and to a large extent, successfully, to hide.

      Another 2 things. For my own interest: source? And secondly to what extent would the outcome have been any different? We know drugs are addictive and yet successfully get more and more people addicted, often helped by the very people they trust to make medical assessments and prescribe medication.

    23. Re: Drug lords... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As i said before i was on fentanyl 100mg patches every 3 days for five years. Three of those years in bed and i missed a lot of my kids functions. It is possible to get off the opiods and live without pain management as i have. But the programs are expensive and highly specific to each individual. There was a doctor i was willing to work with to bring such a program to the masses since i have 30 plus years in IT. The problem was more technology related and the ability to design a program for each individual. Hopefully in time it will be possible for a regular GP to have access to such programs but they involve a variety of doctors working in concert. My life is better although i still suffer chronic pain and i can feel weather 2 days before it hits. I have dealt with individuals of all income levels during my treatment and most of them not only stayed off the opiods but had a improved life. It is possible and that is the direction to treating most opiod addiction. Its a combination of getting clean, treating depression and anxiety and group therapy. The doctors will tell you that they dont fully understand why it works but it does. The program i attended is at the Cleveland clinic. These are solutions to helping people get off the opiods. I'm thankful for big pharma helping me past the worse of my issues but the drugs are not a permanent solution but rather a bandaid. The real issue is a lack of shared knowledge amoung the medical community. I had no idea such a program existed until i heard of it through the grapevine.

      -geekpoet

    24. Re:Drug lords... by shaitand · · Score: 1

      The board of directors for one and practical economics for another. As I said, you fund this at the fed tap which means the money is loaned from the Fed much like it is loaned to banks. Ultimately, it has to be paid back with interest at the fed rate which is adjusted up and down to control inflation. As a charitable non-profit this does need to pay its debts, does not need to pay taxes, and does need to break even but can't generate a profit. Researchers can be hired and fired if they don't produce or aren't on track to produce but since the main focus is producing useful medicine that can pay for itself and not producing the most profitable medicine the focus shifts quite a bit.

      Ideally, very low or no royalties would be charged domestically (since the organization would own patents) with international royalties primarily for the operation. Also an academic branch could be formed with lower pay rates to capture private grant funds and alleviate the massive tax funding going universities to produce drugs for the drug companies now.

    25. Re:Drug lords... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      c) it's a much more difficult problem to solve.

      This is by far the biggest issue. Basically the only thing that will happen is those people will die. Natural selection will work its way through. Sad but true.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    26. Re:Drug lords... by houghi · · Score: 1

      Do you know why the people have these neckties? Because what they do is illegal. Make that legal and a lot less people get killed over it.
      It is directly related with the illegal part.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    27. Re: Drug lords... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The obsession with getting people off opioids has greatly hastened the imminent death of my Aunt. She has problems with her kidneys and they were down to about 20% functionality and she was on morphine for the pain. The pain clinic was forced due to the obsession over addiction to switch her to an alternative drug which she ended up needing more of to get the same affect. Surprise that drug is harsher on the kidneys than morphine and with the amount she was taking it ended up dropping her kidneys down to about 10% functionality left and cause her to overdose because her system couldn't process the drug fast enough.

      That left her unresponsive with a trip to the hospital. After she came home from that she is now on hospice and back to morphine, but the damage is already done. Mentally she is half there half not now. True she didn't have much quality time left in life, but what time she did have was cut short by a political need to switch people off of a drug and not a medical need.

      It's complete bullshit

    28. Re: Drug lords... by froggyjojodaddy · · Score: 1

      Maybe that's a US thing? Up here in Canada, my doctor seemingly loves to prescribe opiates/drugs. A couple of years ago, I had a really bad bout of sciatica, never had it before so when it hit me, I had no idea what was going on. All I knew is that I was in the mall and every step felt like someone was stabbing me in the hamstring, buttock and lower back.

      I didn't even know it was sciatica, just figured I'd pulled a muscle or something so tried 'deep heat' and other muscle rubs. After a week or so, it hadn't subsided so off I went to the doctor. She talked to me for around 20 minutes and prescribed a strong muscle relaxant. Tried it for a few days, didn't work so I went back.

      She then prescribed me 'stronger medicine'. I asked what it was and she said it was an opiate derivative and that it'll help with the pain. I went to the pharmacy on the way home and it was the pharmacist who 20 questioned me. Started asking me about my pain etc. Strongly advised that I shouldn't take this new medicine but should look at physio instead. It was the pharmacist who told me it's likely sciatica - until that point, I still thought it was a muscle pull or something.

      Got the new pills, went home and immediately started Googling. Found some great YouTube videos that showed some stretches/exercises you can do. There's one where you lay on your back and prop your heel of the offending leg up on a couch arm. Hurt like hell trying to get it up there but after a few minutes, the pain went away slightly.

      Did this an other Youtube exercises for a week, Sciatica/pain completely disappeared. Took the (unused) pills back to the pharmacy to be disposed of.

      For some things (back surgery etc?) maybe opiates ARE the solution but my personal experience is that my doctor didn't hesitate to prescribe them when clearly a non-drug solution was available.

    29. Re: Drug lords... by Arzaboa · · Score: 1

      That is generally the problem with other people mandating what you can or can not do.

      --
      Just a little pinprick.
      There'll be no more ah!
      - Pink Floyd

    30. Re: Drug lords... by sjames · · Score: 1

      Why? He's not in office!

    31. Re: Drug lords... by sjames · · Score: 1

      It's been coming to boil for a while, but it's now the new fashionable moral panic in the U.S.

      It sounds like your doctor totally missed your diagnosis. Depending on the pain, a doctor might prescribe a moderate dose of opiates for breakthrough pain (especially if the pain is interfering with sleep), but would mostly focus on the exercises, a cane if needed, and NSAIDS.

    32. Re:Drug lords... by mmdurrant · · Score: 1

      Don't forget that Heroin was Bayer pharma's trademarked name for their diacyetylmorphine preparation.

      --
      I see my shadow changing, stretching up and over me...
    33. Re: Drug lords... by dryeo · · Score: 1

      Actually they had to introduce a new, or at least hardly known, word when they banned hemp, namely marijuana, as people would never have stood for banning such a useful plant. Fiber was part of it, and with a new machine to automate separating the fiber from the bast, the pulp paper industry was heavily threatened, and led by a newspaper tycoon who could publish lots of fake news about the evil weed (as well as getting his son-in-law in charge of the anti-drug department). It is also quite surprising how much hemp seed oil was being used by various industries at the time.
      BTW, you can have strains of hemp that also get you high and it used to be more common back in the day, just that recently hemp has been bred for low psychoactive properties to try for legality.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    34. Re:Drug lords... by sixsixtysix · · Score: 1

      Then why the push by Purdue, back in the day, saying Oxy wasn't habit-forming?

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      ...
    35. Re: Drug lords... by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      It's been coming to boil for a while, but it's now the new fashionable moral panic in the U.S.

      You mean it's a fashionable moral panic in most western countries, and was led by a person who has no business in being involved with it. That of course was a quack chiropractor.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    36. Re: Drug lords... by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Oh jesus, so large amounts of parecetomol?

      Paracetomol is the absolute worst thing in the world for overdoses. A nurse friend told me the worst tragedy she's seen, and seen it more than once, is teenage girls brought in after a massive overdose of paracetomol. No, they don't die in the emergency ward, in fact they rarely seem sick at all (Generally they've oassed out from the codeine in the paracetomol, not the paracetomol itself which is non drowsy).

      But if they don;'t get to it in time, that paracetomol WILL kill them, just not over night. Rather it'll happen over a few weeks, in the form of a slow shutdown of the organs, quite irreversably, as the teenage girl suddenly realises that this shit is real and they are going to die and now don't want to die. And its a horrible, screaming misery and pain filled death.

      Horrific stuff.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  2. The jails and prison will have it for free tax pay by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    The jails and prison will have it for free tax payers will foot the big bill

  3. Worth mentioning by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Troll

    https://jamanetwork.com/journa...

    Findings: This cross-sectional analysis of a national sample of Medicare claims data found that chronic use of prescription opioid drugs was correlated with support for the Republican candidate in the 2016 US presidential election. Individual and county-level socioeconomic measures explained much of the association between the presidential vote and opioid use.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Worth mentioning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      He'll solve the opioid problem. It really won't be that hard. He's got some great ideas on how to solve it, very great. He's got the best people working on it, very good people. And Mexico will pay for it, believe me.

    2. Re:Worth mentioning by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      [...] chronic use of prescription opioid drugs was correlated with support for the Republican candidate in the 2016 US presidential election.

      And now there's a cure for that? Wow, what a world we live in.

      Oh, wait:

      Individual and county-level socioeconomic measures explained much of the association between the presidential vote and opioid use.

      So, there's an association. No doubt causation is more complicated.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    3. Re:Worth mentioning by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      PopeRatzo, I'm on your side. My post was tongue-in-cheek.

      Trump certainly appears to be causing racists to become emboldened, but I don't think taking drugs causes people to vote for Trump, or vice-versa.

      At a recent rally, Obama said that Trump was a symptom of our current political situation, not the cause. And I'm inclined to agree: Trump swept into power by exploiting a Republican base that was over-ripe for a populist takeover, plus disaffected working-class voters in the rust belt that Clinton failed to reach. And, per the study you linked to, many of those people happened to be disproportionately in socioeconomic categories that are disposed to opioid abuse. I'm not sure what causes what, but it is interesting.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    4. Re:Worth mentioning by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      So using that reasoning, people vote for Democrats and Hillary, mainly because they live in large cities. Which have higher levels of lead and mercury in the water, and surface contamination from cadmium and other heavy metals. This of course explains why so many people vote for Democrats, they're mentally retarded and easily influenced because of heavy metal poisoning.

      But let's make actual sense of what is being said: People who are prescribed medications for chronic pain, are the same people who've worked long years in factories or other hard labor jobs and have severe damage to joints, tendons, and so on. In turn, they're more likely to vote for someone who believes there is nothing wrong with hard work. And believe that hard work, is a perfectly acceptable career path. Now, keeping this in mind. How many decades have educators, guidance councilors, teachers, and so on been pushing "don't go into trades, don't work in factories. They're all dead end jobs that will be taken over by robots." Now, by all means, explain why your average tradesman makes more then your average programmer today, and aren't facing the issue of having their job offshored by the company they're working for.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    5. Re:Worth mentioning by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Obama was spot on. Trump is a symptom of our current political situation, but let's remember that Trump's populism is lagging behind other countries because they were doing it first. Especially in European countries. Trump didn't sweep to power by exploiting a republican base. He swept to power by exploiting the people that both parties ignored, and were absolutely tired of it. The republicans with the "rinos" who are more like democrats, or pawns of special interests. They had their mini-revolution with the tea party driving out the neocons, they won in the end. The democrats on the other hand, are in the middle of a civil war and being overtaken by communists and socialists. They're doubling down on special interests, corporate interests, ignoring the people that were their traditional voting block. Ask yourself, why democrats are flocking to Hollywood and actors from "fly over country" to craft their message for rural voters. Doesn't that just scream they have no fucking clue? They're not out in the streets, or meeting up with people to find out the issues. They're having someone else craft and tell them what the issues are.

      Oh and they also invited those neocons in with open arms. Funny how all those people who the democrats hated, are now all over the leftwing pundit sphere preaching the same message isn't it and the rank and file democrats who haven't quit are fine with it, even though they were protesting in the streets ~15 years ago.

      So what's this "current political situation" that he's making a point on? That citizens are tired of governments that allow immigration of people who don't integrate into society. That governments have become far over-reaching, in some cases enacting laws that suppress freedom of speech/movement/property. That said governments aren't representing the people that are electing them, instead they're acting in a fashion across multiple countries all in tandem. Coincidence? Possibly. But when the same policies and politics and attacks(you're a racist, sexist, islamophobe, misogynist, etc) against people are repeated like coming off a script? People start noticing it, even those who don't follow politics. That believing illegal immigration, or migrants, or whatever else has become a serious social problem. That they're tired of the politically correct garbage, being attacked for flying a flag, being nationalist. That corps lie through their teeth to avoid paying their share. They're tired of police, courts and governments who are so afraid of being labeled "racist or sexist" by special interest groups, that they ignore crimes by particular social groups. Oh and haven't even gotten to the bullshit of sanctuary cities or anything and the massive increases in crime from it.

      socioeconomic categories that are disposed to opioid abuse. I'm not sure what causes what, but it is interesting.

      That's the easy part, if you've ever worked a dirty job. It's because those people have damaged bodies from years of hard work. Ruined knees, elbows, wrists, feet, ankles, lower and upper back problems. The options are pain medication, or replacing the damaged joints, spinal fusion, etc. Since those aren't likely covered in any form of healthcare as preventative/rehabilitation, the health care provider will only cover medication to suppress the problem. This doesn't make it abuse either, but a chronic condition. It's the "opioid crisis" that makes it "abuse" now, because getting a scrip to kill the pain is bad. Go take some aspirin and two shots of whiskey for it, just like people did back prior to the 1930's you filthy addict.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  4. Meanwhile, the FDA continues its war on Kratom by bonedonut · · Score: 1

    Scoot Gottlieb has his priorities, and it sure doesn't seem to include getting people off of opioids.

    1. Re:Meanwhile, the FDA continues its war on Kratom by jwhyche · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One of the problems with modern capitalism is we have removed all responsibility from the equation. This mother fucker, and mother fuckers like him, can line their pockets at the expense of the health of people. This mother fucker should be sitting in a prison cell some where. But instead he gets to hide behind a corporation and count his money.

      The capitalist system is the best economic system we have come up with. But we have freed to many people from responsibility of their actions.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    2. Re: Meanwhile, the FDA continues its war on Kratom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Capitalism was great, up until we started protecting corporations from the law for no apparant reason.

    3. Re:Meanwhile, the FDA continues its war on Kratom by sjames · · Score: 1

      As opposed to the safe as candy opoids.

    4. Re:Meanwhile, the FDA continues its war on Kratom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >This mother fucker should be sitting in a prison cell some where.
      Surely for rehabilitation, and not vengeance or punishment :^)

    5. Re:Meanwhile, the FDA continues its war on Kratom by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      When did we start caring about the unemployed whites who are being killed by opioids? They're deplorable, remember? Why the sudden empathy for The Other? Makes no sense.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    6. Re:Meanwhile, the FDA continues its war on Kratom by Memnos · · Score: 1

      Prove it. A doctor saying Kratom alkaloids were present in the bloodstream, therefore the death was caused by Kratom is a long way from proving that it was even likely as the causative agent. And the typical doctor has next to no knowledge of the pharmacology or toxicology of mitragyine or hydroxymitragynine.

      --
      I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
    7. Re:Meanwhile, the FDA continues its war on Kratom by Memnos · · Score: 1

      Research those 44 supposed kratom-related deaths. I have. They were all very tenous conclusions at best. My favorite was the attribution of kratom as the cause of death when the decedent coincidentally also had just gotten a gunshot wound to the chest.

      --
      I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
  5. Gold mine... by bkmoore · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The American healthcare industry is really just a gold mine for those on the right side of the equation. This person has given up any hope that the American health care industry can ever be reformed to put curing disease and human welfare back into the center focus.
    1. 1. Get a government granted monopoly in the form of a patent.
    2. 2. Make sure the government health insurance programs such as Medicare and Tricare cannot negotiate drug prices with the pharaceutical companies.
    3. 3. Get insurance companies and government to make your drug the only approved method for treating opioid addiction.
    4. 4. Jack up the price to an astronomical level. Anyone without sufficient insurance coverage will go bankrupt and ruin their livelihood buying your product.
    5. 5. Take 10% of your earnings to hire more lobbyists to protect your goldmine
    6. 6. Get talking heads to scream at the patients and voters that any effort to control cost or reform the system is SOCIALISM and we'll all be "eating rats" as in VENEZUELA, or Obama will come and pull the plug on granny because she's a conservative christian.
    7. 8. Profit
    1. Re:Gold mine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      1a. Get granted patent on something that was discovered with government research grant money.

    2. Re:Gold mine... by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

      All true but you forgot the part where they TAKE YOUR GUNS!!!

    3. Re:Gold mine... by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      6. Get talking heads to scream at the patients and voters that any effort to control cost or reform the system is SOCIALISM and we'll all be "eating rats" as in VENEZUELA

      Your rant is interesting, and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter, but ... it literally is socialism that turned Venezuela into the $%^hole that is it today.

  6. Opioids and withdrawal by lenski · · Score: 4, Insightful

    After a relatively serious motorcycle accident (36 years ago, it's all good since...), I received a prescription for percodan. I resisted the temptation to try it for a while, but one night I caved and took the pill.

    *Never Again.*

    I don't know whether it was a reaction to the drug, or a small taste of withdrawal. But every cubic millimeter of my body was uncontrollably itchy, for about a day and a half. EVERYTHING was itchy. Inside and out.

    Pain is nothing compared to that experience.

    That said... A guy making billions peddling that shit, then patenting a drug to treat the consequences of having taken the original known-addicting drug is magically, cosmically evil.

    Some bullshit slashdot commenter talking about "personal responsibility" is almost as evil. I remember the Scientific American article written about opioids back in the '90's, in which the authors declared that opioids are not really addictive for patients in real pain. I don't remember whether there were any disclaimers. Now we know they were lying. Now we know that these "trusted sources" with money to be made were fucking over their customers.

    And now we have shitheads commenting with such glibness about personal responsibility. To which I reply: Piss off boy. If you are lucky enough never to have experienced it, or possibly lucky enough to have experienced it and gotten past it, that's all fine. You are the exception. But that does not give you the privilege of dismissing the effects of such executive lying on other people who for one reason or another fell victim to the Royal Scam.

    1. Re: Opioids and withdrawal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you had an allergic reaction.

    2. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You took one pill 30 years ago, had what obviously is an adverse reaction to the drug, and now feel like you're some kind of authority on drug withdrawal and addiction. Okie dokie.

    3. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by piojo · · Score: 3, Informative

      You misunderstood him/her. That anecdote was an introduction to the topic, and an explanation of a narrow escape. It was not a claim of expertise.

      --
      A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
    4. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      You had an allergic reaction. Has nothing to do with "personal responsibility." And making moral equivalence with a slashdot commenter? WTF Grandpa?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    5. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As I understand it, once you become addicted some of the side effects go away or are reduced, but I hope to never find out for myself.

      The solution to opoid addiction isn't more slightly different opioids. The solution is discovering non-opoid drugs which are as good at relieving pain and discovering non-opoid drugs to treat opoid addiction. In more than 4000 years we've not discovered something non-addictive that is better at relieving pain than extracts of a specific flower and the derivatives.

      The idea that opioid addiction can be treated with more opioids makes little sense to me. I see it as something like people who say the solution to gun violence is more guns. Those people are idiots. The idea someone can break their addiction just because they want to also makes little sense to me. I see it something like people who say the solution to gun violence is fewer guns. Those people are also idiots. The solution to gun violence isn't more guns or fewer guns -- the solution is mental health treatment for crazy people and getting non-crazy people out of poverty.

    6. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      I realize that this is not going to be a popular opinion, but aren't you the very example against the argument you're making though? You took an opioid and did not become addicted (just as a number of other people, such as myself who took a strong painkiller exactly once and never again due to not liking the side effects) and took some personal responsibility to realize that even if the pills would treat your pain, it may not be a good idea for you to take them. There are clearly some people who should not be given opioids under any circumstances as they're exactly the type who are susceptible to becoming addicted. It's about as irresponsible as giving an arsonist a book of matches.

      Executives lying about the effects of a medication is its own matter. Let's suppose there were no lies (or that this drug was never released and we're still using morphine instead) and we knew exactly how addictive this medication was. Does it still excuse anyone who disregards that information and uses is anyway, or continues to use it after they have a good reason to believe that they need to tell their doctor to switch them to another medication? If we were talking about crack cocaine, you'd tell people that they have a personal responsibility not to get addicted to crack. You wouldn't completely absolve those people who do get addicted just because there was a dealer who sold it to them and told them that everything would be fine.

      I think that a person has to be severely mentally retarded (in the actual medical sense) before their own lack of ability to be personal responsible for themselves means that they're better off completing largely or completely abdicating that responsibility to someone else. How many less addicts would their be if patients were a little more responsible and did some of their own research instead of blindly trusting a physician, and how many physicians would have written prescriptions if they'd been a little bit more responsible instead of blindly trusting the sales rep from the pharmaceutical company? I really do think that if you want to get through life with a minimum amount of suffering that you do have to try to take as much personal responsibility as possible, even if no one else would blame you if you didn't. No one else is going to do a better job of having your own best interests in mind than you yourself. It might feel comforting to be able to blame someone else after the fact, but I'd rather not have to have the bad experience and look for where to spread the blame in the first place. Even when you don't have malicious assholes lying to you, other people are still capable of making innocent mistakes that can bite you in the ass.

      Prosecute the executives to the full extent of the law if you can prove that they intentionally mislead the FDA, but don't throw personal responsibility out along with them.

    7. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by lenski · · Score: 1

      Some commenters upthread think I may have been an allergic reaction, which is a good point. It is also the case that I am nearly pathologically cynical about drugs and one bad experience was plenty to turn me off of them, so I believe I was lucky. (I'm also lucky in being less emotionally affected by pain than most...) The point I wanted to make in the original comment is that opioids are way more negatively powerful than the industry portrayed them as being, and under the assumption that my reaction gave me a small taste of what what withdrawal feels like, I believe that anyone experiencing withdrawal would be extremely challenged to escape it.

      I do not have a large social network so the sample size of my personally-known contacts who have experienced the effects of opioids is small. Several of my social contacts have had great difficulty with the addictive properties of opioids, having begun taking them under medical supervision.

      I claim that people who do not specialize in the subtleties of medical research papers are stuck with trusting those they know or those who prescribe medications. I do not accept the argument that "personal responsibility" is the whole answer. The information sources most people have access to are manipulated to the point of incoherence, resulting in an inability to come to a rational conclusion.

      The hypothetical idea that a competent patient can do proper research to produce a rational conclusion depends on accurate information, and my citing of the Scientific American article exists to exemplify the challenge that most people have in finding accurate information on which to base their choices. I also believe that even intelligent, disciplined people can be driven to choices that the rest of us would find irrational, when they are faced with unbearable pain and with no other treatment option offered.

      I believed the essential point being made in the SciAm article, and failed to warn a particular close friend off the opioids 15 years ago. The result was dependency, increasingly potent formulations, desperate seeking respite, the depression that comes with such dependency, the fact that his pain could no longer be controlled effectively, and other physical effects of opioid use. His end came after years of struggle and was likely unnecessary. I do not know how representative that situation was, but such experiences, even when not personally felt, are strong teachers.

    8. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by lenski · · Score: 1

      I for damn sure do not claim high ground whether it was an allergic reaction of a bit of withdrawal. I was describing a small "taste" of the challenges people could face. Based on that experience, I grant some room for difficulties to those who experience the real thing, particularly recognizing that "personal responsibility" turns to bullshit when the patient is experiencing the real challenges of withdrawal.

      Saying "personal responsibility" is so much easier than Doing personal responsibility. Particularly when being lied to about the consequences of following doctor's orders.

    9. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That wasn't withdrawal you experienced, Grandpa. That was an allergic reaction. Withdrawal is a tremendous craving. As if you're thirsty in the desert, but instead of water you need opiates. Moreover you have to use the drug for a period of time before you get physically addicted. You took it once? Jeez louise, Grandpa.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    10. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by hey! · · Score: 2

      Here's the problem with personal responsibility: you can't do it without your brain. When you're talking about drugs which derange the reward systems of the brain, getting over addiction is not a matter of virtue.

      It's basic cybernetics: behavior is controlled by various kinds of feedback loops; break those loops and the system becomes unstable.

      When the system goes haywire, it needs support from the outside.

      Now it's true that people who have a propensity for risky behavior have a higher risk of addiction. It's also true that people who lead lives of constant, unrelieved stress (soldiers in war zones, poor people) have a higher risk of addiction. But if there's anything the opioid crisis has taught us is that if you expose enough people to the stuff, you'll get countless addicts who don't fit any kind of profile.

      The opioid crisis kills many, many more people than terrorists ever have, year after year after year. The problem is they die alone, in their homes, so their invisible except to first responders. If you could somehow gather all the bodies from one year and put them all in one place on a single day, maybe people would take this more seriously.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    11. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by demonlapin · · Score: 3, Informative

      It probably wasn’t an allergic reaction. Opioids make some people itch intolerably. Not allergic at all, though.

    12. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      That said... A guy making billions peddling that shit, then patenting a drug to treat the consequences of having taken the original known-addicting drug is magically, cosmically evil.

      Recently I've been thinking that a decent logical case could be made that a being like Satan is in control of the universe. Things may seem random and chaotic, but if you look closely there seems to be a strong bias for evil. War criminals retire in comfort to die peacefully of old age while good people die slowly of horrible diseases or as a result of tragic circumstances, often in a way that benefits terrible people. Terrible destructive monsters like this guy are hyper-rich while people who actually improve others' lives usually aren't wealthy. Sometimes you even see a terrible person shockingly saved from even a tiny taste of their just desserts by some crazy combination of bizarre events, like Joe Arpaio. You rarely see good people benefit from such amazing saves out of nowhere. If someone argued that these things are happening because the universe is ruled by a supernatural being of infinite malevolence but finite power, that would be damn hard to argue against.

      It could make for an interesting religion: Whatever evil being is supernaturally controlling the world hates us and wants to maximize injustice and suffering while benefiting the useful monsters who do its bidding, and it is the duty of good people to resist these forces and counteract their effects.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    13. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by sjames · · Score: 2

      Except the only way to find out who shouldn't be given opoids is to give them opoids. Kinda like the cashier at the grocery store doesn't KNOW he's selling matches to an arsonist, especially one who is about to offend for the first time.

      What's really despicable is that tapering an addicted patient off of opiates is legally risky for a doctor. They're supposed to cut them off cold turkey so they can be driven to a street dealer if that often ineffective "treatment" doesn't work.

      There is no special virtue in luck of genetics and circumstance leaving you without an addiction problem. Count your good blessings but don't look down on others who weren't as fortunate.

      Addiction is insidious. By the time someone realizes that their medically justified and prescribed pain medication might become a problem, they're already addicted. In other cases, they may know it could become a problem, but the pain is a problem right now and it just laughs at a couple aspirin.

      If someone Was taking prescribed ibuprofen after an accident and developed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...">Toxic epidermal necrolysis, would you be asking what moral failing on their part caused their misfortune?

      Really, here in the 21st century you would think we would be past ascribing medical problems to unrepented sin.

    14. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by lenski · · Score: 1

      ...That's an interesting idea, so I did a quick search. That produced this link:

      https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

      It looks like the itching is a common side effect (good to know, I didn't know that before looking it up), and the researchers are working to *reduce* it not *cause* it.

    15. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by lenski · · Score: 1

      Interesting ideas, but I''m OK with simple boring self-centeredness carried to extremes by people with too much power and not enough accountability.

      Then again, there are days where rationality seems to be in such short supply that maybe supernatural forces might be a useful explanation... :-)

    16. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by lenski · · Score: 2

      OK, apparently it was not MY "withdrawal", I can accept that. I'll stay the hell off that shit because my own side effects include the itchiness.

      I stand by the basic analogy though: Opiates were prescribed too frequently based on willfully inadequate warnings. It's still irresponsible to label the patients as irresponsible who as often as not, start down the road while in recovery from accidents, or operations, or whatever distracting experiences caused the pain in the first place. Imagine someone who was given that stuff in the delirium after an operation, getting out their laptop and doing a well-informed literature search. I can see how well that advice works. or not. That was in fact nearly my situation: Badly busted up, in recovery, thinking about the busted up and not so much the drugs that were legitimately prescribed.

      That is part of the overall problem with medical treatment: Being a well informed shopper when you're well or only mildly inconvenienced is a reasonable expectation. It is not reasonable to expect someone who cannot even remember how old he is (the day of my accident, I couldn't compute my age...) to do your literature search on the effects of the prescribed treatments.

      My original comment was based on the idea that addiction (whether from short term use or not) is such a serious problem that it should have been reported as such. Having full and correct information on which to base a rational decision is required, and based on my reading at the time, that information was being willfully withheld.

    17. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 1

      Similarly, I had a tooth removed after a bad root canal attempt. It only took one of the pills I was prescribed to scare the fuck out of me. It felt WAY too good.

      I'm thankful that I flushed that bottle down the toilet.

      --
      "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    18. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by fafalone · · Score: 1

      Since the iatrogenic addiction rate in patients who weren't already serious drug abusers has been studied, perhaps you'd care to cite it to support of your arguments? Or would it being under 1% undermine your uninformed rant too much?
      By the way, the suggestion that any licensed physician wouldn't know that a full agonist opioid is as addictive as any other full agonist opioid, is laughable. As is the suggestion you'd feel withdrawal from a single tiny dose (you had an allergic reaction, oral oxycodone, unlike codeine, normally provokes very little histamine release, your symptoms were from an extreme histamine reaction).

    19. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by MemeRot · · Score: 1

      Morphine was promoted as treating opium addiction.
      Heroin was promoted as treating morphine addiction.
      https://www.therecoveryvillage...
      Nothing new unfortunately

    20. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

      You're a doctor over the internet?

    21. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by houghi · · Score: 1

      Bring out your dead!

      Yet I agree. It is said that the USofA is not able to take care of the people. I really wonder howso many believe they live in the bestest country in teh world, while they never have seen another one and live in way worse situations than a lot of other countries.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    22. Re:Opioids and withdrawal by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Whatever evil being is supernaturally controlling the world hates us and wants to maximize injustice and suffering while benefiting the useful monsters who do its bidding

      But what if he is the leader of the Executive Branch?

  7. Like giving an alcoholic a drink to cure them? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is just a repeat of all their former drugs.

    The government should issue the patent at great cost ($1B), then ban the specific drug in question. And use the money for addiction counseling.

    But of course $$$ are more important than human life in this country.

    1. Re:Like giving an alcoholic a drink to cure them? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      In Europe AA programs are a not a end all drinking forever. It is to ween the addict off alcohol slowly. Many former alcholics can drink a glass of wine fine after a while.

      When taking anti depressants that fuck with your head it is the same process. If you are on a high dose of Prozac or any SSRI or SNRI and just quite it can be very serious and bad! You need to take apart the capsole and count the pills after weening off the lowest dose over a month.

      It takes awhile for brains to adjust to rapid changes in endorphins and neurotransmitters.
       

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:Like giving an alcoholic a drink to cure them? by MemeRot · · Score: 1

      I don't know about europe, but that is completely contrary to what american AA teaches

    3. Re:Like giving an alcoholic a drink to cure them? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      I got my exwife to quit smoking this way. You just need to have your brain not fight you. She smoked cigarettes regularly for 1 week and wrote down each time she smoked. She cut back 15% the next week. 15% the next and so on. It was easier than expected.

      Yes she still craved a cigarette but was able to quit without the shakes.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    4. Re:Like giving an alcoholic a drink to cure them? by houghi · · Score: 1

      AA is about Alcohol. The dependencies on Alcohol are completely different than those to smoking.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    5. Re:Like giving an alcoholic a drink to cure them? by houghi · · Score: 1

      Well, neither is the AA in Europe.
      1) Europe is not a country. There is no Euroean AA. There isn't even a "Belgian AA".
      2) From the AA pages Flanders
      In AA leer je dus niet hoe je minder kan drinken of hoe je een sociale drinker kan worden die tijdig kan stoppen met drinken.
      At the AA you do not learn how to drink less or how to become a social drinker that can stop with drinking.
      Wat we wel doen is je leren hoe je kan stoppen met drinken, door het eerste glas te laten staan, door vandaag nuchter te zijn, ..
      What we do is to learn you how to stop drinking, by not taking the first glass, by being sober today, ...

      The person also compared Alcoholism to his wife cutting down on smoking and then not smoking anymore, in a followup post. Thast obviously is unrelated to alcoholism.

      So it is contrary to the "Europan AA" as well.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  8. Lemme just take one guess here... by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    This pill to combat the addiction to the previous pills... it's addictive too, isn't it?

    1. Re:Lemme just take one guess here... by fredrated · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's where the third pill comes in....

    2. Re:Lemme just take one guess here... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Sure. And you can bet they discarded any alternatives that were not (or far less so) in the search process. They have to ensure the cash keeps piling up, after all.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Lemme just take one guess here... by drew_kime · · Score: 1

      Is there a mod option for "+1 funny ... and insightful ... and sad"? Because this comment really needs it.

      --
      Nope, no sig
  9. Re:The jails and prison will have it for free tax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Doctor: "The good news is, we cured your Oxycontin addiction. The bad news is, now your addicted to Buprenorphine."
    Doctor: "But don't worry, we have another drug to cure that."

  10. There's nothing like... by GerryGilmore · · Score: 1

    ...being both the arsonist and the fire-fighter and getting to profit on both sides! America, Fuck Yeah!!

    1. Re:There's nothing like... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Probably what the Roman Empire looked like towards the end....

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  11. Re: Understatement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There's a midpoint between prescribing morphine for a minor headache with unlimited refills, and telling people to suck it up and take an aspirin for a ruptured disk in their spine.

  12. Frustrated Incorporated by istartedi · · Score: 2

    We could build a factory and make misery We'll create the cure; we made the disease

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  13. What's supposed to be the alternative to opioids? by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 3, Informative

    After a recent operation the first thing they did in the recovery room is shoot me full of opioids and I'm in commie Europe. When I went home I got a small number of oxycodone tablets for if things went off the deep end and the NSAIDs became useless (as they tend to do for serious pain). What's supposed to be the alternative?

  14. This has been going on for some time. by hey! · · Score: 1

    After the great opiod boom got rolling in the 90s, pharmaceutical companies developed new medications to combat the side effects, like nausea.

    Now it's not that that anti-nausea medications for people who legitimately need to take opioids, but pharmaceutical companies aren't humanitarian organizations. They were doing this to push more oipioids, which they knew damn well were being overprescribed on a horrific scale.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  15. Re:What's supposed to be the alternative to opioid by Notabadguy · · Score: 5, Informative

    After a recent operation the first thing they did in the recovery room is shoot me full of opioids and I'm in commie Europe. When I went home I got a small number of oxycodone tablets for if things went off the deep end and the NSAIDs became useless (as they tend to do for serious pain). What's supposed to be the alternative?

    CBD. Cannabidiol. People primarily associate marijuana with THC, which is the euphoria-inducing drug, but the other piece of marijuana is CBD, which is one, if not the most effective and non-addictive painkiller available.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    That's where medical marijuana is finding its niche. People who need pain relief get CBD; you can get patches, ointments, tinctures, sublingual drops, pills, or vape pens. People who want to replicate opiods get CBD with a bit of THC. People with panic attacks, PTSD, mental disorders, etc get THC. The ratio of the chemical formulation provided depends on your symptoms.

    Its no surprise that anti-marijuana research and lobbying is primarily funded by big pharma - its competition.

  16. Re:Understatement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You want to go back to the days before effective pain killers?

    Be my guest.

    We do have an opoid problem... and it's because we have a pain problem... and because opoids are addictive.

    But even at their worst, opoid withdrawal is like a pretty bad flu. Alchohol withdrawal will actually kill you.

    One is legal. The other is an immensely valuable medicine.

  17. Re:Personal responsibility would start with ... by lenski · · Score: 1

    I was young, money was very tight and the feeling of riding through the curves of southeastern Ohio (and other places) was wonderful then...

    I gave up on the powered kind. I still benefit from the muscle-powered kind, from which I still receive major health benefits.

  18. Re: What's supposed to be the alternative to opioi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Weed is not painkiller. In fact it makes burns much more annoying.

  19. Re:I've got a patented way to treat addiction as w by sjames · · Score: 2

    You are exactly the sort of person who is sure all paraplegics are just lazy and could stand up if they set their minds to it.

  20. Reminds me of a song I know... by Kevin108 · · Score: 2

    We'll create the cure; we made the disease.
    -- Soul Asylum; Misery, 1995.

    --

    It's a perfect time for being wasted.
    A perfect time to watch the stars.
    - Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
  21. Your strategy is noble, but flawed by Brannon · · Score: 1

    Ditch big pharma, fund drug development at the fed tap managed by a private non-profit with a board of medical researchers

    The structure you describe discourages risk-taking & disruption, and encourages groupthink. History has taught us that the engine of progress is decentralized innovation. As soon as you have some sort of central authority planning where innovation where come from then progress stagnates.

    Capitalism isn't necessarily the only way to get there, but it's an extremely powerful way to harness human greed & status-seeking behavior. It's foolish to disregard that.

    1. Re:Your strategy is noble, but flawed by shaitand · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "The structure you describe discourages risk-taking & disruption, and encourages groupthink. History has taught us that the engine of progress is decentralized innovation."

      Exactly the opposite. Big pharma is anything but decentralized. Big pharma is also failing to produce anything earthshattering and new that revolutionizes medicine. Stop and think about it, how many miracle drugs have you seen in the last 30 years? Not new surgeries or cancer busting treatments but actual medications? Not many. For the most part you see new drugs that are minor variations on old drugs so the patents are new and doctors given heavy incentives to prescribe them. If we tried a new structure existing medications wouldn't disappear and it is unlikely to do worse. There is actually more medical innovation coming out of Europe than the US these days and they are completely socialized.

      This would allow anyone with the qualification to do so to individually jump right in and develop drugs which will hit the market at rates we pay for generics now. You don't need a handful of people to have a chance of winning the lottery to motivate, a top 1% salary is plenty of economic motivation to go into the field and everyone, wealthy or not, has a shared interest in offering that incentive.

      "Capitalism isn't necessarily the only way to get there, but it's an extremely powerful way to harness human greed & status-seeking behavior. It's foolish to disregard that."

      Big Pharma isn't capitalism at all, it is exactly the opposite. People are right to not want government controlled healthcare because our government will do a terrible job of it. But it is also true that market economics work poorly for healthcare and research. There is no real limit to what you can squeeze from a person for good health and there is a greater profit to be made if you can make someone continue to pay for treatment rather than cure them.

      When it comes to the health of citizens that is unacceptable and a non-profit (although there is nothing to say there can't be more than one to compete) run by actual experts solves both problems, the staff will be well compensated for the work they are doing but also will have to convince their peers they are in fact doing valuable work and progressing medicine without any attempt to halt and maximize the monetary benefit of a discovered medication before going on to the next beyond the minimum necessary to break even. By taking funds from the fed tap, it's a loan, there is still interest to be paid back and so still pressure and that interest varies with the economic state of the country we will just be investing these funds into medical progress rather than banks. And of course we will still be privatizing the production, distribution, and sales of the drugs produced with FDA control only on quality and purity to make sure nobody is cheating or ignorantly producing poison.

      This has an excellent side effect. You'll certainly want to see your doctor to figure out which medication you should take or if you should be taking any at all but it will eliminate 90% of the repeat visits which are just to get a new prescription you already know you need. This frees up doctors offices to treat more patients and/or provide more attention and care to those they see.

      It's very simple, human greed in medicine conflicts with the interest of every other human when it comes to producing medication. Status-seeking behavior and wealth is only one form of status, you can seek status in a non-profit environment. On the other hand, so long as you have controls that prevent cheating, human greed can work just fine on production and distribution where for-profit competitors all have access to the same medications and compete for the profits to be had on manufacturing them and getting them into the hands of those who need them. Small company? Great, make your profits on the medications needed by a smaller number of people that are going to be higher cost. Big company? Great, use your ability to invest in mass prod

    2. Re:Your strategy is noble, but flawed by shaitand · · Score: 1

      You'd need to build out your lab network as well. This is easier than it might seem. Put plans together for state of the art facilities and let cities supply the land and build them for you since they will get the economic boost from the jobs you create as well as the construction, maintenance, etc. The cities will issue municipal bonds to fund the construction and you purchase the bonds which will pay a higher rate than the fed rate you are borrowing at.

      You can make similar arrangements with manufacturers of lab equipment to initially outfit your labs with large orders of US manufactured equipment, offsetting prices by purchasing corporate bonds to provide them the capital to supply your order. Since you are a charitable non-profit they can even donate the equipment as a charitable donation and also get a continued write off for the interest they pay you on the bonds. Clearly you will need replacements, upgrades, service, etc into the future so all around this would be a big win.

      Establishing an educational branch would let you snap up the public and private grant money as well as ensure a steady supply of talent. These students would be working with the cost their education coming directly out of their salaries. This would provide an excellent means of reducing and eventually eliminating the tax dollars going to fund this work while producing a core of top 5% earners that pay income taxes in the highest brackets.

      An internal credit union for the use of those earners will ensure they are able to invest back into the community as well with gains all being invested back into paying for research and salaries.

      Of course this would need to license out patents to any and all drug manufacturers with low royalties for domestic use and higher royalties for international. In order to guarantee a competitive market you'd spin off two or three as well. This means third party manufacturers will help ensure third party manufacturers aren't able to collude and avoid a race to the bottom while giving them no special terms will avoid subsidizing a bottom below what the market would allow.

      It can definitely work and pay for itself. The staff would not be government employees with unions and federal protections, they would have to work for their supper. Being a non-profit would mean not paying taxes directly but having to either cut rates to avoid profits or expand growing the R&D and in so doing further stimulating the economy and producing more top 1-5% taxpaying earners.

      Non-profits aren't anti-capitalist, they just don't skim off the top.

  22. They say socialism is evil and kills lives by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    I say this article is true of the exact opposite. For those non Americans who know the difference between socialism/socialist democracies vs communism.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  23. Just like a crack dealer by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    crack dealers hook you by coming into a area, low balling the price, running everyone out, then jacking up the price. Now, these opioid "dealers" get you hooked on their drug, NOW come up with a drug to get you off the drug they hooked you on in the first place. Wouldn't surprise me, people will get hooked on the drug, to get you hooked on the drug they wanted you on in the first place, then will have to get you off the drug, that was suppose to get you off the drug, they hooked you on.

  24. Re: Understatement by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

    Naproxen works better than aspirin for nerve/back pain anyway

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  25. Re:What's supposed to be the alternative to opioid by GrBear · · Score: 2

    CBD. Cannabidiol. People primarily associate marijuana with THC, which is the euphoria-inducing drug, but the other piece of marijuana is CBD, which is one, if not the most effective and non-addictive painkiller available.

    After going through all the hoops in Canada to get a medical MJ license, I was disappointed as hell that CBD didn't do a damn thing for me for pain or depression. The two things CBD reportedly was supposed to help.

    I half wonder if the people that claim it helps aren't just making this shit up to sell it.

  26. Re:What's supposed to be the alternative to opioid by fafalone · · Score: 1

    Just like opiates don't help all types of pain, neither does CBD. It's not a magic cure all that can replace opiates in all cases. The official alternative is "sit there and suffer". Needless to say, good luck getting people to acknowledge all the suicides coming out of that.

  27. Re:The jails and prison will have it for free tax by LordWabbit2 · · Score: 1

    Prime reason not to have privatized your prisons, it adds incentive to KEEP people in prison or PUT them in one. Bloody stupid idea, and I would bet the "three strikes" ruling came directly from lobbying from the people who own the prisons. The USA has the highest per capita amount of people in jail. As Jim Jeffries said, "Land of the free? Not so much" (I am paraphrasing).

    --
    There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
  28. Re:Everything thats wrong with 'merka by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2

    Dear ignoramus: Do you know what a merkin is?

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  29. Re:What's supposed to be the alternative to opioid by Mashiki · · Score: 1

    I half wonder if the people that claim it helps aren't just making this shit up to sell it.

    They're not. It's either hit or miss, that's why say a person with migraines can be treated easily with stuff like Fiorinal c(asprin/barbiturates/codine/caffine) in one mix. And other people are on everything from sandomigraine to gabapentin and still have problems. It's why lyrica works for some people with nerve damage, and for others it increases the pain, or doesn't work at all. Why some people can get away with simply using tramadol for their pain, while others require oxycontin.

    --
    Om, nomnomnom...
  30. Re:What's supposed to be the alternative to opioid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry, but this info is bull.
      I've suffered severe fractures and in my body cbds were way more useless than the oxys .. which also didn't really help much. gah, just thinking about this now has me cringe with pain. just stop with your untested preaching. you're seriously mistaken.

  31. Re:What's supposed to be the alternative to opioid by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    After a recent operation the first thing they did in the recovery room is shoot me full of opioids and I'm in commie Europe. When I went home I got a small number of oxycodone tablets for if things went off the deep end and the NSAIDs became useless (as they tend to do for serious pain). What's supposed to be the alternative?

    The alternative?

    Why indignation of course! At "big pharma"!

    Well, OK, it won't kill pain, but it might distract you some ...

  32. not understanding... by evanchik · · Score: 1

    They already make Suboxone, sublingual, and in film form, and Subutex as well as generic Burpenorphine, which comes without that very small amount of Narcan. Is this just PR for the epidemic that they started?

  33. Re:What's supposed to be the alternative to opioid by strikethree · · Score: 1

    What's supposed to be the alternative?

    Suffering. Pain will not kill you. If you ask some people, they say that pain is life. Suffering is not a problem for those who are merely watching the suffering.

    --
    "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
  34. Almost perfect by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

    Now if they could just come up with a scheme to drug boys when they're in elementary school (add, adhd, etc) and drug the girls when they are women (depression meds) they have a hell of an industry? Oh wait, that's what they already do.

  35. Restore faith in big pharma by grilled-cheese · · Score: 1

    If you want to restore my faith in "big pharma": Use 90% of all profits from the treatment (and I really mean gross - manufacturing cost as my definition of profit) as a charitable donation to opioid education and treatment. Additionally, stop all research into improving the existing potency of opioids. Finally, let doctors handle medicine, not lobbyists/police/sales agents.

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