“During the debate, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called out the pharmaceutical industry and clinicians who are overprescribing opioids, challenging them to ‘start getting their act together.’ He failed to outline his own detailed plan to tackle opioid addiction.
“We cannot have this huge number of opiates out there, throughout this country, where young people are taking them, getting hooked, and then going to heroin,’ he continued.”
“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who began her comments with personal anecdotes, called the issue a ‘major epidemic’ in both New Hampshire and the country at large. ‘We have to do more on the prescribing end of it,” she said. ‘There are too many opioids being prescribed, and that leads directly now to heroin addiction.’
She promoted her five-point plan to curb opioid misuse, abuse and overdose. Her strategy includes several components: ensuring treatment to those who want it, changing the way the country does law enforcement and providing first responders with naloxone, an opioid antagonist.”
“’I agree we need to rein in the overprescribing,’ he said, ‘but I have put forward, on my plan, a $12 billion federal investment.’ The funding will go toward financing local partnerships, he noted.
‘The best indicator of when a person is actually on the verge of killing themselves because of an addiction is at the hospital,’ O’Malley said. ‘That very first time they show up with a near miss; we should be intervening there.’
And not one of them is probably even giving half a thought to the chronic pain patients only further and further barred from life saving pain relief for chronic, non-cancer pain by further legislative restrictions on opiate prescriptions. Or the well meaning doctors who prescribed responsibly but are now too afraid of being accused of abuse to prescribe the medications they and their patients know are needed, causing patients to suffer when the real number of abusers among chronic pain patients is absolutely tiny. This is really terrifying to chronic pain patients.
You can sign a petition here pleading Bernie Sanders to rethink his policy.
And read a peer reviewed, scientifically solid article here on opioid use in chronic pain patients.
My favorite bit:
“On the other hand, although the potential is there, addiction is actually quite rare in patients treated appropriately for pain. In fact, the presence of pain appears to provide a protective action against the rewarding effects of opiates. The real problem for the treating physician is that diversion of prescription pain killers for recreational use is growing, yet for many patients with chronic non-malignant pain, there currently is no better treatment alternative than opiate analgesics. The scientific challenge is to design a drug that retains high analgesic potency with reduced potential for tolerance, dependence and addiction.”
Democratic Presidential Candidates Offer No New Policy Initiatives To Address Opioid Epidemic
A Middleground 