MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER

MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER

I listened to an interesting report on National Radio yesterday on the rise of opioid use. It seems that drug companies for at least 3 decades have, with complicit assistance from legislators created a problem that will take many more decades to fix.

USA is the worst in opioid production and misuse to the point where more Americans died last year from opioid overdoses than were killed in the Vietnam war. Initially designed for relief of cancer pain, opioids are now consumed by far more people than cancer sufferers and overuse and overdosing has reached epidemic proportions in some USA states. The FDA is seeking to reduce production in 2018 by 20 to 25% which will obviously bring about a backlash from the powerful drug companies who have massive lobbying powers and who control many politicians.
It was the drug companies and their bribing of the medical profession that led to the problem in the beginning with doctors over-prescribing codeine based medicines and the new opioids with little controls and restrictions.

The new synthetics like  Fentanyl and Meperidine are way more powerful than the natural opiates like morphine and heroin (which lead to addiction, overuse and death) and are in the market as prescribed drugs and illegally being mixed with the 'natural' opiates causing a spike in overdose deaths (Prince for example).

The semi-synthetics like Buprenorphine, Hydrocodone, Oxycodone etc. are the ones most prescribed by doctors and with mass manufacture are most likely to be handled illegally. If the FDA is successful in cutting back production by 25% then the 'legal' drug companies  will have to find new channels of distribution. New Zealand and Australia will be in their sights. Opioid prescription has risen in New Zealand over the last couple of years and this seems to be further increasing.
I remember years ago discovering that my mother's doctor (a real useless bastard) had been freely prescribing her Di-gesic (dextropoxyphene hydrochloride and paracetamol blend) for arthritic pain relief. This drug had been banned in several countries. I got my sister, a GP, to intervene and to substitute safer analgesics.

When I had a painful bout of shingles and the neuralgia aftermath PNS late last year, I was prescribed several different painkillers - Tramadol (synthetic), Amitriptylene (anti-depressive, Oxycodone (semi-synthetic) and codeine. I only briefly tried these and decided I didn't want the side effects or the risk of addiction and put up with the pain instead. It was a lousy period of disrupted sleep and discomfort but I got through it.

It occurred to me that years ago, in New Zealand we didn't have all this prescribed shit and made do with aspirin and paracetamol for pain. Severe clinical pain could be handled in hospitals and clinics. The guy on the street didn't have to be doped to the eyeballs.

The illegal manufacturers in China, Myanmar and other countries also have their eyes on New Zealand and the dangerous and powerful synthetics like Fentanyl are turning up in concoctions of heroin, morphine and synthetic marijuana thus leading to the 'unexplained' deaths we've recently been seeing.

Bastards!