Topic: opioids

Portman argues that since business and industry will directly benefit, they should take an active or even a leadership role in this effort.

I’d feel better if I knew some in our brilliant science community were working hard on ways to taper patients, if just the most highly motivated, off the medications with a reduced risk of return to heroin.

The real solution would have been for Prince to have received treatment for his drug problem, which by this time was a far bigger issue than his somatic pain.

It’s a move that helps bring the FDA on board with the CDC, instead of simply reviewing and approving new pharmaceutical opioids for the marketplace.

The theory is that the more users we put in jail or prison, the fewer left out on the street. So why hasn’t that substantially reduced arrest and overdose statistics?

I’ve been expecting a public relations counterattack on behalf of, and probably funded by, the pharmaceutical industry.

Based on the vast number of prescriptions for opioid medications written by US practitioners over the past few decades, we’ve become the clear leaders in opioid prescribing.

Is that pain evidence of a worsening physical condition or of drug withdrawal?

Many of those programs treat opioid users without relying on medication, and yet manage to achieve remarkable success rates– sometimes 80% over a five year period.

Too many doctors worry about “those people” showing up in the waiting room. They don’t particularly want to be known as a resource for the addicted.