Like, we shouldn't be mad at opioids, we should be mad at drug pushing profiteers.
When I had routine surgery a few years back the doctor insisted I take a prescription for Oxy, even though I told him I was fine. I filled it at his insistence and within a couple days could feel my body building dependence and craving more. I switched to ibuprofen as it freaked me out to feel how strong it was. It seemed very irresponsible to prescribe Oxy for something as mild as my case.
For debilitating chronic pain? For sure, these need to available. If anything Purdue pharma made this situation worse for those that actually need these drugs.
Purdue caused more addiction to occur, which in turn caused reduced access to the opioids that existed prior to the creation of Purdue's nuisance product.
Also, perverse incentives caused by the patent and licensing system motivated them to make OxyContin unnecessarily addictive in it's formulation and dosing schedule, in order to engage in patent "ever-greening" of an existing substance.
Oxycodone has been around for a long time, but was doesed and administered more safely in older products.
Purdue did some pretty perverse things to support their patent and regulatory rationale for OxyContin. To gain approval as a superior and patent-able alternative to the other extant gerneric hydrocodone and oxycodone products, it was claimed to require less frequent (but larger) doses. The result was that large numbers patients found that when taken as directed it provided superior pain relief, followed by a return of pain, in conjunction with hours of opioid withdrawals until the next dose. Early on in the product's life cycle doctors were encouraged to increase the dose but not the dosing schedule when patients complained, in part because the alternative would have undermined the rationale for the existence of the product.
Although this was probably an undesired side effect from the point of view of Purdue, they could hardly have designed a better way to cause drug addiction. Millions of people took this product and many became addicted. Purdue went far out of their way to publicize people as criminals rather than address the fundamental problem with the way the product was administered. It seems to be evidenced that the more effective administration schedules of other already existing products cause less addiction, so at the margin, Purdue caused many more drug addicts to exists than would have otherwise.
If they had not done this, or had been willing to adequately address the problems, we would probably still have easier access now to the opioids that already existed. The problem has grown to such a scale that it is now very hard to "put the genie back in the bottle."
In 2018 ~130 people died every day in the US overdosing on opioids[1]. I'm sure they're effective for you but if people are not responsible enough to be trusted taking them without killing themselves then you might as well be arguing to legalize heroine for treatment as well. It would probably be even more effective.
And for the record I do think it probably should be legal for treatment anyway.
[1] https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/opioids/opioid-overdos...
https://www.economist.com/leaders/1989/01/21/hooked-on-just-...
Alcohol kills literally twice that number of people per day and is a factor in nearly half of all violent crime and is a quarter of a trillion dollar market, and yet we seem to fine with that trade-off even though it has absolutely ZERO therapeutic application.
> putting "crisis" in quotes like it's a manufactured epidemic
The epidemic might not be manufactured, but given the numbers re: alcohol the outrage certainly seems to be. It's a moral panic, imo.
"including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl"
So recreational drug abusers are included in the count? I believe the OP was only taking prescription drugs.
Is there a count somewhere of just the overdoses on prescribed opioids?
2002 8.8 million pills
2011 781.5 million pills
The US didn't experience a massive increase of numbers of people in pain.
Again I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's not possible to know from the context in your post alone.
They intentionally and knowingly deceived the market that opioids were safe. Had they not done that maybe the opioid epidemic would not have happened and you could still have access to the medicine that you are grateful for.
Please do read up on how horrible they are.
Here's an excerpt from a recent New Yorker article:
The 2007 case was not supposed to end the way it did. For four years, prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia gathered evidence on Purdue, subpoenaing millions of documents. They found a widespread pattern of illegal misconduct in which Purdue systematically misled doctors (and the general public) about the risks associated with OxyContin. In September, 2006, the prosecutors detailed their damning evidence in a hundred-and-twenty-page memo, suggesting that the wrongdoing at Purdue was so pervasive, and so consistent, that it could have been authorized only by the company’s leaders. This memo, an internal government document, was not made public until August, 2019, when the Times published excerpts of it showing that the prosecutors had intended to bring felony charges against three top Purdue executives: Michael Friedman, Howard Udell, and Paul Goldenheim. The full memo, which I have reviewed, describes the Sacklers as “The Family” and notes that the company was owned and controlled by the brothers Mortimer and Raymond Sackler and their heirs. (The heirs of a third Sackler brother, Arthur, sold their interest in the company prior to the introduction of OxyContin.) The company “trained its sales representatives” to use “false and fraudulent” claims about OxyContin, the memo states. The prosecutors noted that the three executives they intended to charge “reported directly to The Family.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-sackler-familys...
I think the challenge is that even if someone saves 100 lives, if they kill 1, they face criminal consequences. Maybe coming from the assumption we're supposed to do things to help people, I dunno.
I had my first back surgery at 18, my second at 25, and I've been staving off 5 separate herniated discs since. I'm in a good place now (barring literally today), but I can't stress enough how useless you end up being, mentally, to take enough thc/cbd to relieve your pain enough to be functional. Really, I just trade my disfunction of one type for disfunction of another type, which is only acceptable because sometimes you simply can't handle the pain.
OP: I've had a lot of luck finding relief with tramadol. It may not be sufficient for your pain or work for you, but it's a schedule IV instead of a schedule II - my doctor can even call it in. In my experience, doctors don't treat you as a drug seeker if you suggest it - they almost seem relieved that you're not asking for the radioactive stuff. Just throwing it out as a possibility.
For myself, for the rare times each year I need it now, it has been wonderful: most of the opioids were almost putting me into a frenzy - not really the right word since it wasn't as strong as the word frenzy implies, but I would get pretty amped up and anxious. Tramadol offers me relief but I stay fairly even keeled - I can even keep working, for instance, something I can't say I can accomplish when I'm using enough THC/CBD to achieve relief. I wouldn't drive on it or sign a contract, but I'd put it on par with having a couple of beers at lunch.
Tramadol also has a bunch of shit in it, I feel like it's a 'dirty' drug. For example, it's very closely related to the chemical structures of antidepressants. This can be helpful, but not when you need to stop it. You also can't really take any serotonergic medicine either as you'd be at a very high risk of serotonin syndrome. Nobody wants that.
Honestly, old and true medicines really do work. I'm not saying the Sacklers are awesome, they're fuckin'evil and didn't value human lives - but the drug works for those who need it.
And Cannabis is not legal in New Zealand, at least yet. We'll find out on the 30th if it's going to be...
(I have to be on it after burning my entire left arm, and chest with burning hot oil - I also educate myself on medicines as I used to work in said sector, and I do have seizures and Tramadol is well known to lower the seizure threshold very very fast)
Sigh. I really don't know what to do in these scenarios, it's nothing but bad choices :(
An example here is that too many doctors believe that Pregabalin has no withdrawals. They're very wrong. Here, they will prescribe it for anything. It works really well too, but there's a lot of hidden bullshit. As an example, they give it to people with epilepsy, but one of the main contradictions is that it can actually cause seizures. So when that started happening for me, they put me on clonazepam (2mg, six times a day).
When I burned myself, I told the hospital I did not want either medicine. There's no point in taking Pregabalin if I have to take so much clonazepam to fix the side effects.
A week later (while still in hospital) I had a panicked pharmacist for the ward visit me and he's like "omg we weren't giving you these two" and I said, "nah mate, it's fine. I feel okay apart from the pain" and he's like, "hang on, you just stopped 12mg of clonazepam a day and you feel fine?" and so I said yes, it's because it simply stopped working and my body has decided it doesn't work on me anymore, which is why I can't take the Pregabalin either... and the stupid thing is the Pregabalin is probably one of the best things I could take right now due to it's amazing nerve pain relief. I'd rather not have seizures though, nor have to find the right kind of benzo to help. I doubt I'd find one that's different enough from the rest to help.
Cannabis doesn't work. Paracetamol/acetaminophen, ibuprofen, NSAID's don't work.
Morphine, codeine and tramadol do. Tramadol is the best of a bad bunch.
I might also add I don't enjoy being high at all. I really prefer to have a clear head, especially during the day while I'm working. I've tried strains that are supposed to be good for that but they don't really work on the pain.
I'm at least grateful for the few good years I did get thanks to opioids, before they became radioactive. I hope some day we can swing the pendulum back toward compassion a bit.
Everybody seems to want politicians and cops (DEA) deciding who should get them and who shouldn't. That may be an impossible mindset to change.