[Vision2020] Narcotics = Good, Marijuana = Evil?

[lfalen]

This is a problem, but there is an over reliance on pain killers and they are too frequently prescribed. I have arthritis in my left hand. It hurts all the time but I live with it. I do not use any pain killers. I put a heat pad on it once a day. That helps quite a bit.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:26:21 -0700
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Narcotics = Good, Marijuana = Evil?

> Painkiller sales spike, fueling addiction Overdose death toll from
> opioids rising
> Chris Hawley
> Associated Press
> 
> NEW YORK – Sales of the nation’s two most popular prescription painkillers
> have exploded in new parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis
> shows, worrying experts who say the push to relieve patients’ suffering is
> spawning an addiction epidemic.
> 
> From New York’s Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M., Drug Enforcement
> Administration figures show dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the
> distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet and
> Percodan. Some places saw sales increase sixteenfold.
> 
> Meanwhile, the distribution of hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin,
> Norco and Lortab, is rising in Appalachia, the original epicenter of the
> painkiller epidemic, as well as in the Midwest.
> 
> The increases have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy
> robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other
> states. Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and
> hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the death
> toll is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
> 
> Nationwide, pharmacies received and ultimately dispensed the equivalent of
> 69 tons of pure oxycodone and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone in 2010, the last
> year for which statistics are available. That’s enough to give 40 5-mg
> Percocets and 24 5-mg Vicodins to every person in the United States. The
> DEA data records shipments from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals,
> practitioners and teaching institutions. The drugs are eventually dispensed
> and sold to patients, but the DEA does not keep track of how much
> individual patients receive.
> 
> The increase is partly due to the aging U.S. population with pain issues
> and a greater willingness by doctors to treat pain, said Gregory Bunt,
> medical director at New York’s Daytop Village chain of drug
> treatment clinics.
> 
> Sales are also being driven by addiction, as users become physically
> dependent on painkillers and begin “doctor shopping” to keep the
> prescriptions coming, he said.
> 
> Opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone can release intense feelings of
> well-being. Some abusers swallow the pills; others crush them, then smoke,
> snort or inject the powder.
> 
> The AP analysis used drug data collected quarterly by the DEA’s Automation
> of Reports and Consolidated Orders System. The DEA tracks shipments sent
> from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals, practitioners and teaching
> institutions and then compiles the data using three-digit ZIP codes.
> 
> The AP combined this data with census figures to determine effective sales
> per capita.
> 
> A few ZIP codes that include military bases or Veterans Affairs hospitals
> have seen large increases in painkiller use because of soldier patients
> injured in the Middle East, law enforcement officials say. In addition,
> small areas around St. Louis, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Newark, N.J.,
> have seen their totals affected because mail-order pharmacies have shipping
> centers there, said Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National
> Association of Boards of Pharmacy.
> 
> In 2000, oxycodone sales were centered in coal-mining areas of West
> Virginia and eastern Kentucky – places with high concentrations of people
> with back problems and other chronic pain.
> 
> But by 2010, the strongest oxycodone sales had overtaken most of Tennessee
> and Kentucky, stretching as far north as Columbus, Ohio and as far south as
> Macon, Ga.
> 
> Per-capita oxycodone sales increased five- or six-fold in most of Tennessee
> during the decade.
> 
> “We’ve got a problem. We’ve got to get a handle on it,” said Tommy Farmer,
> a counterdrug official with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
> 
> Many buyers began crossing into Tennessee to fill prescriptions after
> border states began strengthening computer systems meant to monitor drug
> sales, Farmer said.
> 
> In 2006, only 20 states had prescription drug monitoring programs aimed at
> tracking patients. Now 40 do, but many aren’t linked together, so abusers
> can simply go to another state when they’re flagged in one state’s system.
> There is no federal monitoring of prescription drugs at the patient level.
> 
> In Florida, the AP analysis underscores the difficulty of the state’s
> decade-long battle against “pill mills,” unscrupulous doctors who churn out
> dozens of prescriptions a day.
> 
> In 2000, Florida’s oxycodone sales were centered around West Palm Beach. By
> 2010, oxycodone was flowing to nearly every part of the state.
> 
> While still not as high as in Appalachia or Florida, oxycodone sales also
> increased dramatically in New York City and its suburbs. The borough of
> Staten Island saw sales leap 1,200 percent.
> 
> The American Southwest has emerged as another hot spot.
> 
> Parts of New Mexico have seen tenfold increases in oxycodone sales per
> capita and fivefold increases in hydrocodone. The state had the highest
> rate of opioid painkiller overdoses in 2008, with 27 per
> 100,000 population.
> 
> Many parts of eastern California received only modest amounts of oxycodone
> in 2010, but the increase from 2000 was dramatic – more than 500 percent
> around Modesto and Stockton.
> 
> Many California addicts are switching from methamphetamine to prescription
> pills, said John Harsany, medical director of Riverside County’s substance
> abuse program.
> 
> *
> *
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
> 
>