Showing posts with label Oxycontin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oxycontin. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Some questions about druggies

With deaths from drug overdoses at a record high we have calls to do something about it.  Good idea, but what should we do?  Before I can get on board some one's magic cure, there are a few things I need to know about.  Such as:
1.  Every young person ought to know that anything harder than pot will ruin their lives and/or kill them.  Have we gotten this word out to this year's young people?  Do they believe it?
2.  Are all the institutions and media on board with getting the message out about the dangers of drugs?  Schools, churches, parents, radio and TV, Facebook and its competitors, video games, movies, the music business, and others that might come to mind? 
3. Why do people  get into drugs?  Is it just the pleasure of the high?  Especially as a lot of drugs need injection, sticking a needle in your arm, an event I have detested ever since injections of penicillin as a small child.  For me personally, doesn't matter how great the high is, I won't stick a needle in my arm because it hurts.  If it isn't just the pleasure of the high, then what is it that makes the druggie keep doing it? Are there things in the druggie's life that we could change to get him/her off the stuff?  If so, what might they be?
4.  Does drug rehab really work?  How many people have entered drug rehab and how many of them actually get off and stay off drugs?
5.  What are the generally accepted medical guidelines for prescribing the stronger opioids like  Oxycontin. Do these guidelines make sense?  I know that Oxycontin is so dangerous that many pharmacies refuse to stock it.   How many current druggies got hooked on prescription opioids?
6.  Does methadone work?  Working means getting the druggie off the really ruinous drugs and stabilize things enough that the druggie can hold a job.
7.  What happens to druggies over time?  Do they eventually get off the stuff? Or does it kill them? Or what?
 

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

4 out of 5 heroin addicts started with presciptions

  Dr. Marc Siegel, in an op-ed in today's Wall St Journal, and on Fox news where he is the medical expert,  states that 4 our 5 heroin addicts got started on their addiction with opioids prescribed by their doctor.  Things like Percoset, Oxycontin, Vicodin, prescribed for pain, often back pain.  The Oxycontin situation is so bad that many pharmacies refuse to stock it, citing the risk of robberies by addicts.
   There has been a lot of talk about the opioid crisis, the over dose deaths from heroin and fentanyl and the need for "programs" (what ever that might mean) to "do something" about it.
   Maybe we need the medical profession to tight up their prescribing habits.  I haven't heard any talk about that.