Statistically, you are now more likely to die of an opioid overdose than in a car accident.
Yet in the 1990s, the pharmaceutical industry assured doctors that the narcotic pain medicines they were hawking were “largely nonaddictive.” Opioid prescriptions increased about fourfold over the next 20 years.
What are the consequences?
Per the Center for Disease Control, 2017 (the last data set fully available) saw 17,000 Americans die of a prescription opioid overdose.
That death toll rises to 47,600 when one factors in drug cocktails where prescribed narcotics were involved and deaths from street opioids like heroin- and please note that 70-80% of heroin users started with prescription opioids.
Over the past two decades, America has lost 400,000 people to an opioid overdose. Parents have buried approximately 10,000 teens due to opioid use.
Also in 2017: pharmaceutical companies made $9.57 billion from the sale of opioid medications alone.
It’s not just the pain medications either. When the sale of drugs to treat opioid side effects, overdoses and addiction is added, the pharmaceutical industry raked in approximately $15 billion from opioids.
A menagerie of Oxycodone, Dilaudid, Vicodin, Percocet, Fentanyl and many others have been unethically, irresponsibly offered to American patients and the pharmaceutical industry has gobbled up the profits.
Some are finally starting to be held accountable- the state of Oklahoma sued one company, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures Oxycontin. The state alleged the company knew how addictive their drug was and hid this information from doctors and the public. Purdue agreed to a $270 million settlement to avoid a televised trial.
The fatalities these drugs have caused are only part of the picture: over 100,000 people suffered nonlethal opioid overdoses in 2017 and millions suffer from addiction.
The emotional toll of addiction on the family, friends and addicts themselves, the abuse the addict’s body takes, the cost of rehab, hospital bills and possible legal fees are still another piece to consider.
Additionally, the toll on society society: violence, homelessness, court costs, the cost of incarcerating someone, and countless other tragedies, from foster care to taxpayer-funded autopsies.
Of course, personal responsibility is an important factor here, and no one forces a patient to abuse their narcotic pain medicine.
But when pharmaceutical companies run print and television ads about “safe and effective” pain treatment in the form of opioid medications, this crisis goes far beyond personal responsibility.
Opioids being “safe” has been a joke for a while. But often, they are not particularly effective, either.
A study by the Department of Health and Human Services indicates a staggering 62% of opioid misusers abuse the meds simply “to relieve pain,” as the prescribed dose was ineffective, or their pain resurfaced too quickly.
It’s very possible some of those surveyed did not answer honestly, but even if we assume three-quarters of them were lying, it still means over 2 million people misused opioids simply because the drugs did not do what they were marketed to do.
It should be pointed out that in most other countries, it is illegal to advertise medications to the public.
Besides patients and the Big Pharma, medical professionals played a role in this epidemic as well.
While some people really do need opioid medications- cancer patients, for example, or those who have suffered extremely serious injuries- many doctors agree that they overprescribe the drugs.
Some doctors do not do enough to distinguish people who are truly in pain from people simply seeking drugs and others opt to prescribe opioids when safer alternatives are available.
And again, in the end, patients who abuse the drugs make the decision to do so on their own.
Some can become addicted inadvertently (they get an opioid prescription with no intention of abusing it, then physical dependence leads to mental obsession), however many patients very deliberately misuse opioids from the moment they fill the prescription.
Other times, the patient prescribed the drugs does not abuse them, but someone with access to their medicine cabinet does.
Clearly, accountability for one’s own choices and behaviors is part of this issue and remains so regardless of the motive for abuse.
The HHS study mentioned above indicates that besides a high, reasons for misuse included a sleep aid, to help with emotional problems or to relieve tension.
It is common knowledge that all of these issues have safer, more effective treatments of their own.
Even so, none of the above absolves the pharmaceutical industry. In fact it brings up a few more questions:
- The pharmaceutical companies knew perfectly well how addictive opioid medications were, and they didn’t anticipate drug-seeking from the public?
- If people and their doctors had not been led to believe these drugs were safe, how many would have sought alternative treatment?
- At the very least, how many patients would have made sure to lock up or dispose of their leftover meds?
- How many lives might these simple ideas have saved?
- Is it more likely none of this occurred to the pharmaceutical companies, or that all of it did but there was too much money in opioids to care?
