By Dr. Mercola
While most drugs come with a long list of potentially devastating
side effects, painkillers — courtesy of their addictive nature — tend to
be among the most lethal. Prescriptions for opioid painkillers have risen by 300 percent over the past 10 years,1 and Americans use 80 percent of the world's opioids.2
In Alabama, which has the highest opioid prescription rate in the U.S., 143 prescriptions are written for every 100 people.3 A result of this trend is that overdose deaths from painkillers now far surpass those from illicit street drugs.
In 2013, about 23,000 Americans died from overdosing on prescription drugs, and painkillers accounted for about 16,000 of those deaths.4
Drug Industry Is Responsible for Mass Addiction
Many believe the drug companies that create and sell these drugs need
to be held accountable for this dangerous trend, especially since
several have been caught lying about the benefits and risks of their
drugs.
As noted by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA),5 the drug industry has "fostered the opioid addiction epidemic" in several ways, by:
• Introducing long-acting opioid
painkillers like OxyContin, which prior to reformulation in 2010 could
be snorted or shot. Many addicts claimed the high from OxyContin was
better than heroin.
In fact, from a chemical standpoint, OxyContin is nearly identical to heroin, and has been identified as a major gateway drug to heroin • Changing pain prescription guidelines to make opioids the first choice for lower back pain and other pain conditions that previously did not qualify for these types of drugs.
Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has had a hand in this
problem, although it restricted its promotion of narcotic painkillers to
cancer patients6 • Promoting long-term use of opioids, even though there's no evidence that using these drugs long term is safe and effective • Downplaying and misinforming doctors
and patients about the addictive nature of opioid drugs. OxyContin, for
example, became a blockbuster drug mainly through misleading claims,
which Purdue Pharma knew were false from the start.
The basic promise was that it provided pain relief for a full 12
hours, twice as long as generic drugs, giving patients "smooth and
sustained pain control all day and all night."
However, for many the effects don't last anywhere near 12 hours, and
once the drug wears off, painful withdrawal symptoms set in, including
body aches, nausea and anxiety. These symptoms, in addition to the
return of the original pain, quickly begin to feed the cycle of
addiction.7
A 2015 article8
in The Week does a great job revealing the promotional strategy
developed by Purdue, and backed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), that has led to such enormous personal tragedy. As noted in this
article,
"The time-release conceit even worked on the FDA, which stated
that 'Delayed absorption, as provided by OxyContin tablets is believed
to reduce the abuse liability of a drug.'"
New Hampshire Suing Over Deceptive Marketing
Several states are indeed trying to hold drug makers accountable for the epidemic of addiction.9
One of them is New Hampshire, where the state attorney general's
office has filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, accusing the company
of deceptive marketing, saying it misrepresented the risks and benefits
of long-term opioid use for chronic pain.
But while the attorney general's legal team consists of three people,
Purdue has 19 lawyers on the case. As reported by Concord Monitor:10
"One year after the state attorney general's office filed
subpoenas against five large drug companies to discover how addictive
painkillers have been marketed in the state, the pharmaceutical giants
have handed over nothing more than legal briefs ...
The current legal fight is whether the attorney general's office can hire outside help.
All of the drug companies have refused to turn over any internal
documents, as long as the attorney general's office works with hired
counsel — Cohen Milstein — a firm that has litigated similar cases
against the pharmaceutical industry.
Lawyers representing the drug companies have argued Cohen
Milstein has an inherent bias against them because it will only get paid
if the state takes future legal action against the drug companies.
A Merrimack County Superior Court judge recently sided with the
state, but the drug companies are refusing to budge ... 'They don't want
us to know, that's for sure,' Boffetti said. 'We can have no resources;
they'll do everything they can to prevent us from seeing the
documents.'"
OxyContin — The $30 Billion 'Widow Maker'
Since its approval in 1996, Purdue has raked in more than $31 billion
from the sale of OxyContin. Sales remained unaffected even after Purdue
and three of its executives pleaded guilty in 2007 to criminal charges
of misleading regulators, doctors and patients about the drug's
addiction and abuse risk.
The company paid $600 million in fines and payments. The three
executives, which included Purdue's president and one of its lawyers,
agreed to pay another $34.5 million in fines after pleading guilty of
misbranding.11
As early as 2003, the FDA ordered Purdue to pull its printed
advertisements for OxyContin, saying the ads "grossly misrepresent" the
drug's safety profile.12
Despite such obvious warning signs that opioids were being
misrepresented and misbranded, little was done to rein in their use.
More than 194,000 people have died from overdoses involving opioids,
including OxyContin, since 1999. During this time, the death rate from
overdoses among women has risen by 450 percent.
Addiction among younger adults has also dramatically risen. As noted
by Dr. Andrew Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid
Prescribing (PROP), many get caught in a cycle of addiction after being
prescribed an opioid drug for a sports injury or wisdom tooth
extraction.13
But the elderly are the most vulnerable group. Not only are they
prescribed opioids more often than younger people, they also have the
highest addiction and death rate.
Beware: Opiates Are Potent Immunosuppressive Drugs
Earlier this month, I interviewed Dr. Thomas Cowan, a family
physician and founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation
(WAPF), about the use of low-dose naltrexone
(LDN) for autoimmune diseases. Naltrexone is an opiate antagonist,
originally developed in the early 1960s for the treatment of opioid
addiction. It blocks the effects of the narcotic by attaching to opioid
receptors in your body.
For heroin overdoses, a dose of about 30 to 50 milligrams (mg) of
naltrexone is used to prevent the fatal respiratory depression from a
narcotic overdose. However, when used at a very LOW dose, about
one-tenth or less of the dose you'd use for opioid addiction, LDN ends
up working as an immune booster.
Cowan shared some interesting and largely unknown information about
opioids in that interview. As it turns out, opioids are actually very
potent immune suppressors. As such they can wreck your health in serious
ways, leaving you far worse off than where you started.
A famous study called the European Prostitute Study actually showed
the primary risk factor for HIV and AIDS was neither sexual exposure nor
IV exposure, but rather opiate exposure. It is believed that
overstimulation of the opioid receptors, as from opioid drugs, results
in severe immune impairment.
According to Cowan, you will typically see that as soon as a patient
starts taking opiates for chronic pain, their health rapidly declines as
their immune system becomes increasingly compromised. Besides avoiding
addiction, this is another important factor to consider before you start
taking a narcotic pain reliever.
Drugmaker Knew OxyContin Ended Up in Hands of Criminals and Addicts
"[F]or more than a decade, Purdue collected extensive evidence
suggesting illegal trafficking of OxyContin and, in many cases, did not
share it with law enforcement or cut off the flow of pills. A former
Purdue executive, who monitored pharmacies for criminal activity,
acknowledged that even when the company had evidence pharmacies were
colluding with drug dealers, it did not stop supplying distributors
selling to those stores.
Purdue knew about many suspicious doctors and pharmacies from
prescribing records, pharmacy orders, field reports from sales
representatives and, in some instances, its own surveillance operations,
according to court and law enforcement records ..."
Purdue insists it has "at all times complied with the law."16
Yet according to federal law, drug makers are required to report
suspicious drug orders and activity to the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA), and must also reject orders if they suspect the
drugs may be sold on the black market. Purdue did neither.
Senate-Approved Opioid Legislation Another Boon for Drugmakers
Frustratingly, government action is simply "feeding the beast" that
is Big Pharma. While concerns about rising addiction rates led to the
passing of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which was
approved by the U.S. Senate in May, the bill does little to address the
root of the problem.17,18
Rather than punish drug makers who promote addiction through
misleading or false marketing, the bill focuses on the treatment of
addicts and availability of anti-addiction drugs. For example, the bill
will allow doctors and nurse practitioners to prescribe buprenorphine,
which has previously been notoriously difficult to obtain.
Buprenorphine19
is a partial opioid agonist, so while it's a type of opioid, it's less
likely to cause a "high," and hence less likely to promote addiction.
Meanwhile, it also functions as a pain reliever.
While safe and effective treatment is certainly necessary, one could
argue that replacing one addictive drug with another is not a real
solution. Rather than reining in the misuse and excessive use of
narcotic painkillers, the bill simply rewards Big Pharma with more
orders for more — albeit different — pills!
So the same industry that created the addiction problem in the first
place is now rewarded for its callousness, as the government's plan to
address the addiction epidemic simply feeds back into the drug
industry's pockets.
Drug companies intentionally got people addicted and now they're
providing the treatment drugs, which will be paid for by your tax
dollars. The 2017 budget will include over $1 billion in "new mandatory
funding over two years to expand access to treatment for prescription
drug abuse and heroin use."20 Why isn't the drug industry being held accountable for at least part of this enormous financial burden?
Instead, drug companies are raking in more money than ever before.
For example, with increasing demand, the price for the
overdose-reversing drug naloxone (Narcan) has nearly doubled, from $20
to $40 per dose.21
And why isn't more done to prevent the misuse and overuse of narcotic
painkillers in the first place, especially since they've been clearly
identified as the new gateway drug to heroin?
West Virginia Legislation to Regulate Suboxone Clinics
In West Virginia, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has proposed a bill that
would require addiction clinics using Suboxone to be regulated by the
state. Suboxone is a drug consisting of four parts buprenorphine and one
part naloxone. Naloxone is considered an "abuse deterrent," as it
causes more painful withdrawal symptoms.
The Tomblin bill would require Suboxone clinics to offer counseling
and perform drug testing on all patients to ensure the drug is used as
intended. Despite its use as an anti-addiction drug, Suboxone, as well
as pure buprenorphine (sold under the brand name Subutex) can and has
been abused. As reported by Charleston Gazette-Mail:22
"The bill (SB 454) attempts to crack down on Suboxone clinics
that deal in cash. It requires clinics to bill a patient's health
insurance before they bill the patient, so that clinics can't cater to
cash customers who intend to abuse or sell their medication ..."
While this may sound all good and well, there are serious questions
to be raised here. Suboxone is the sole buprenorphine drug on West
Virginia's "preferred" list for Medicaid coverage, per contract with the
maker of the drug, Reckitt Benckiser. Similar drugs, such as Zubsolv
and Bunavail, are available in lower doses, which may reduce the risk of
abuse, yet they cannot be prescribed to West Virginia Medicaid patients
unless Suboxone treatment fails.
Why does West Virginia have such a monopoly contract with Reckitt
Benckiser? In December 2013, Reckitt's offices in Richmond, Virginia,
were raided by agents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the
Office of Inspector General (OIG). According to a report23 from that time, the search warrant was issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Western Virginia.
The company has also been slapped with antitrust lawsuits24,25
by drug wholesalers and insurance companies who claim "Reckitt
'schemed' to obstruct generic competition." The company is also under
investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).26,27
Again, while treatment for addiction is important, it seems
white-collar pharma criminals are rewarded by this kind of legislation,
and the government is basically just providing a monopoly for addiction
treatment with another addictive drug.28
Drug Addiction — An Intentionally-Created 'Disease'
More and more politicians are now starting to view and discuss opioid addiction as a disease,29
but none address the crux of the problem or the elephant in the room,
which is that this "disease" has been created intentionally by the drug
industry and the federal government. This pays, because then they can
make even more money on the drugs issued to treat the addicts.
Meanwhile, low-cost medical marijuana
is listed as a Schedule I controlled substance, alongside heroin, LSD
and Ecstasy. This really defies all common sense and logic. Schedule I
controlled substances have a "high potential for abuse" and "no accepted
medical use."
But when it comes to marijuana, mounting evidence suggests it may in
fact have many beneficial medical uses. It appears to be especially
helpful for chronic pain conditions. One recent study found patients
given the herb experienced 30 percent or greater improvement in pain
compared with placebo.30
Other research has found marijuana therapy produced "dramatic
physical and mental improvements" in nursing home patients, while
simultaneously reducing the need for other medications.31
Medical Marijuana Lowers Prescription Drug Use and Abuse
Other recent research also found that medical marijuana lowers
prescription drug use. Could that be why it hasn't been rescheduled?
There are no other truly compelling reasons why addictive narcotics like
OxyContin are legal, while marijuana — which is extremely unlikely to
kill you even if you take very high amounts — is not.
The video above features W. David Bradford, Ph.D., whose study was published in the journal Health Affairs earlier this month32 As reported by The Washington Post:33
"[R]esearchers at the University of Georgia scoured the database
of all prescription drugs paid for under Medicare Part D from 2010 to
2013. They found that, in the 17 states with a medical-marijuana law in
place by 2013, prescriptions for painkillers and other classes of drugs
fell sharply compared with states that did not have a medical-marijuana
law.
The drops were quite significant: In medical-marijuana states,
the average doctor prescribed 265 fewer doses of antidepressants each
year, 486 fewer doses of seizure medication, 541 fewer anti-nausea doses
and 562 fewer doses of anti-anxiety medication. But most strikingly,
the typical physician in a medical-marijuana state prescribed 1,826
fewer doses of painkillers in a given year."
According to Bradford, the Medicare program could save $468 million per year if marijuana was legalized in all U.S. states.34,35
Already, $165 million was saved in 2013 in the 18 states where medical
marijuana was legal that year. Similarly, a 2015 working paper by the
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) states that:36
"If marijuana is used as a substitute for powerful and
addictive pain relievers in medical marijuana states, a potential
overlooked positive impact of medical marijuana laws may be a reduction
in harms associated with opioid pain relievers, a far more addictive and
potentially deadly substance."
Not only did the NBER find that access to state-sanctioned medical
marijuana dispensaries resulted in a significant decrease in
prescription painkiller overdose deaths, it also led to a 15 to 35
percent drop in substance abuse admissions. So, it would seem medical
marijuana — far from being the deadly drug it's been made out to be —
could actually SAVE thousands of lives that would otherwise be destroyed
by painkiller addiction and its lethal consequences.
It's a real travesty that while the U.S. Senate refuses to release its opioid report,37
they're more than willing to shell out taxpayer money to Big Pharma,
both for addictive painkillers AND the drugs to treat addiction.
Are You or Someone You Love Addicted to Painkillers?
Some of the marketing material for opioids claims the drug will not
cause addiction "except in very rare cases," describing the adverse
effects patients experience when quitting the drug as a "benign state"
and not a sign of addiction. This simply isn't true. As noted by
Kolodny, "It's not true that patients can be easily tapered off these
drugs."
Panic is one psychological side effect commonly experienced when
quitting these drugs, and this can easily fuel a psychological as well
as physical dependence on the drug.
It's important to recognize the signs of addiction, and to seek help.
If you've been on an opioid for more than two months, or if you find
yourself taking higher dosages, or taking the drug more often, you're
likely already addicted and are advised to seek help from someone other
than your prescribing doctor. Resources where you can find help include:
With all the health risks associated with opioid painkillers, I
strongly urge you to exhaust other options before resorting to these
drugs. For a long list of alternative pain treatments, please see my
previous article, "How Federal Policies Have Spawned a Heroin Epidemic."
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