To what extent has a zealous crusade against cannabis fueled this opiate painkiller epidemic? We have spent 50 years, untold trillions of dollars, sacrificed freedoms and rights (like the 4th amendment), and put millions and millions of people in jail for long sentences, over a plant that has never killed anyone. In the meantime, we cheered the pharma stock prices as stronger and stronger opiates were cranked out, and instead of ‘reefer madness’ we have a whole lot of young kids dying from Oxy and getting hooked on opiates. What was the definition of “insanity” again? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
Weren’t opiates used only for end of life pain management at one point? And then opened up for other areas? If so, that was probably the beginning of the problems.
I can understand your comment however opiates have been used for surgical pain for as long as I can recall. Some injuries leave the patient in debilitating pain for the rest of their life. With the narcotics (which I have refused to increase the dosage several times) I have started a business and am contributing to the tax base again. Without them the pain is enough to keep me bedridden most of the time. I have had nine surgeries to my left knee, while trying to work through it I herniated a couple discs where I have a congenitally small spinal canal. There are two aspects that I think are overlooked: In NYS we are worked harder than anywhere else I have been, when I moved to another state I was hired and the interviewer said “we love New York people, they are hard workers. Well that is because we are pushed both by employers and economical conditions. Another thing I feel is overlooked is the job market has become more competitive and employees have to push their bodies more than they use to, to hard in many cases. As a example look at the post offices injuries since supervisors get a bonus for keeping cost down/labor/base profit. Long term injuries are on the rise. Yet another thing that happens is that doctors are pushed to return employees back to work asap. “Hydrocodone is a very functional drug” quoting a doctor who also said you can get through the work day with this and finish healing while you are working. Through all of this I ended up permanently crippled. I would much rather see mandatory recovery times that the insurance companies have to adhere to. Better care would mean less long term medications. The issues driving the whole reduction are 1) recreational use of opiates and the cost to the insurance companies who are “sponsoring” the movement to cut use of these medications for financial reasons. The people it hurts the most are the ones who hurt enough as it is.
Interesting article, Denise and Don. There have been a few reports which state that opiate-related deaths are going to surpass- or will surpass- all other drug-related deaths. Do you think the pharmaceutical industry lobbying has anything to do with this?
As one has suffered long term from chronic pain, I cringe every time an inaccurate article like this appears because in helps wrongly influence opinion and law, making it even harder for those who actually need pain medication to function. Studies show the U.S. ranks at the top of the world in under treating chronic pain, so how can it also rank so high in opioid related overdoses? The answer lies in how “opioid related overdoses” are counted. For example, if someone dies and the corner finds even a small amount of an opioid in the corpse, it is deemed an opioid “related” overdose. Never mind that the actual cause of death was another drug entirely. In fact, most death attributed opioids results from a combination of drugs, usually illegal. This is an other witch hunt and those of us who simply can’t earn a living or function without opioids will suffer the consequences.
I agree with this. Overdoses that are killing people are from the tylenol in the medication. Do some research people ! If you are on workmans comp; you get drug tested each time you go to the doctor. If legislation comes out to cut back on over use or those that do not really need the medication; then an outside doctor should be provided to see IF I REALLY NEED the medicine ! I am taking ESGIC, which is not on their formulary now; and have to buy it myself; which is very difficult as our work load for the year has really dropped off ! My lawyer is taking this case to the supreme court for pain and suffering as well other legal rights !
So workmans’ comp can go to H_E_L_L !!!!
These drug deaths ARE from too much tylenol in the pain pills, not from the opiates themselves. First of all workmans comp is not going to allow these meds to be fill more than the script dictates by the doctor.
I just had my pain med which is ESGIC cut off from being paid; and I can only afford a small amount (paid for by my own money). I am mad as hell as an outside doctor did not examine me to see if I really needed it or not !
I intend to take this to the supreme court; as I am tired of my rights as a citizen of this country to keep getting taken from me. AMERICA HUH ? Land of the free ? What the hell happened to our CONSTITUTION ; AND THE RIGHTS THERE-IN ?????
are you out of ur mind? i bet if your family member or your self was the one in pain, you would have no problem with them taking painkillers.. hmm i wonder why someone in PAIN would still be taking PAIN KILLERS if they still have a pain issure… ur an idiot
Luis hit the nail on the head, if it was them in pain they would want the long term pain treatment. How do you expect a person to live with out pain medication if they have cronic pain everyday of there life. If you have done everything the doctors have told you to do with back surgery and they told you that they can’t help you anymore and turned you over to a pain clinic. You still have the cronic pain you can’t expect a person to carry on with life as if the pain is not there. If you think you can just stick a screwdriver in your back and see how long you can stay at work and perform your job. This is how bad the back pain is. It’s not like a muscle ache it is nerve pain that the doctors can’t pin point where the pain is coming from. Doctors are able to tell how much pain you are in and if they are a good doctor can manage your pain so that you can have somewhat of a life. Without the pain medication this would be impossible. Are you just trying to kill the people off who are in cronic pain? They would not want to live if they were in so much pain they could not function. A doctor can tell if a person is abusing his or her pain medication. You do not get high on the pain medication if you are in pain and a doctor does have the ability to see this. Please rethink what you are saying and doing to the people who already live everyday in pain and then you are saying take the pain medication away. You Are Not Human and you would not do it to yourself or your family if they were in the same situation. enough said………..
I messed up my back in 2009 and have continued going to back doctors and pain management docs. but work comp is blocking about everything to give me relief and now the GOvernment has decided i just don’t need pain meds. Doc has already cut me back per day and is going to again in Nov. but now with this who knows…. i talked to a case worker recently and she told me i was fine and i can work.. I have a full time job working about50 hrs a wk. but i can no longer do the job i was trained for and have done the last 30 yrs. i asked and still ask. if i can not get any relief from the pain what am i supposed to do. i remember one comment Obama made yrs ago.. if you are not adding to society you are a drain on it. so i guess we are all supposed to jump off a cliff.
I herniated 2 lumbar disc’s in my back on the job and have had a total of 6 surgeries and now have a lot of scar tissue build up causing me severe chronic pain. Now BWC has a doctor that has never seen nor examined me say that my pain medication or muscle relaxant is a necessary treatment for what the BWC certified surgeon screwed up on with my 3 back surgeries so i assume that since there is no other treatments that are cost effective that will help me i should either suffer or end the pain by ending my life…..
I would like to say after 10 years at the same dose my pain has been kept stable and these have been good years my life has been improved not gotten worse do some studies and if you look honestly you will find many long term treatment patients that are living better lives with pain relieved all on medications you claim made lives worse but that have provided continued pain relief and better lives because of it.
.
Don’t let them fool you. It’s all about insurance costs. Comp Lawyers manipulate studies and talk the lawmakers into changing laws to drive up profits.
They could care less if the patient suffers. It doesn’t matter if the patient has not abused the medications for years.
I hope everybody who works for comp suffers their own spine injuries. !!!!!
To what extent has a zealous crusade against cannabis fueled this opiate painkiller epidemic? We have spent 50 years, untold trillions of dollars, sacrificed freedoms and rights (like the 4th amendment), and put millions and millions of people in jail for long sentences, over a plant that has never killed anyone. In the meantime, we cheered the pharma stock prices as stronger and stronger opiates were cranked out, and instead of ‘reefer madness’ we have a whole lot of young kids dying from Oxy and getting hooked on opiates. What was the definition of “insanity” again? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
In the future, please disable your graphics after they have run through one time. The shifting text makes it very difficult to read.
I felt like I was on opiates trying to read it with the text jumping all over the place.
Weren’t opiates used only for end of life pain management at one point? And then opened up for other areas? If so, that was probably the beginning of the problems.
I can understand your comment however opiates have been used for surgical pain for as long as I can recall. Some injuries leave the patient in debilitating pain for the rest of their life. With the narcotics (which I have refused to increase the dosage several times) I have started a business and am contributing to the tax base again. Without them the pain is enough to keep me bedridden most of the time. I have had nine surgeries to my left knee, while trying to work through it I herniated a couple discs where I have a congenitally small spinal canal. There are two aspects that I think are overlooked: In NYS we are worked harder than anywhere else I have been, when I moved to another state I was hired and the interviewer said “we love New York people, they are hard workers. Well that is because we are pushed both by employers and economical conditions. Another thing I feel is overlooked is the job market has become more competitive and employees have to push their bodies more than they use to, to hard in many cases. As a example look at the post offices injuries since supervisors get a bonus for keeping cost down/labor/base profit. Long term injuries are on the rise. Yet another thing that happens is that doctors are pushed to return employees back to work asap. “Hydrocodone is a very functional drug” quoting a doctor who also said you can get through the work day with this and finish healing while you are working. Through all of this I ended up permanently crippled. I would much rather see mandatory recovery times that the insurance companies have to adhere to. Better care would mean less long term medications. The issues driving the whole reduction are 1) recreational use of opiates and the cost to the insurance companies who are “sponsoring” the movement to cut use of these medications for financial reasons. The people it hurts the most are the ones who hurt enough as it is.
Interesting article, Denise and Don. There have been a few reports which state that opiate-related deaths are going to surpass- or will surpass- all other drug-related deaths. Do you think the pharmaceutical industry lobbying has anything to do with this?
As one has suffered long term from chronic pain, I cringe every time an inaccurate article like this appears because in helps wrongly influence opinion and law, making it even harder for those who actually need pain medication to function. Studies show the U.S. ranks at the top of the world in under treating chronic pain, so how can it also rank so high in opioid related overdoses? The answer lies in how “opioid related overdoses” are counted. For example, if someone dies and the corner finds even a small amount of an opioid in the corpse, it is deemed an opioid “related” overdose. Never mind that the actual cause of death was another drug entirely. In fact, most death attributed opioids results from a combination of drugs, usually illegal. This is an other witch hunt and those of us who simply can’t earn a living or function without opioids will suffer the consequences.
I agree with this. Overdoses that are killing people are from the tylenol in the medication. Do some research people ! If you are on workmans comp; you get drug tested each time you go to the doctor. If legislation comes out to cut back on over use or those that do not really need the medication; then an outside doctor should be provided to see IF I REALLY NEED the medicine ! I am taking ESGIC, which is not on their formulary now; and have to buy it myself; which is very difficult as our work load for the year has really dropped off ! My lawyer is taking this case to the supreme court for pain and suffering as well other legal rights !
So workmans’ comp can go to H_E_L_L !!!!
These drug deaths ARE from too much tylenol in the pain pills, not from the opiates themselves. First of all workmans comp is not going to allow these meds to be fill more than the script dictates by the doctor.
I just had my pain med which is ESGIC cut off from being paid; and I can only afford a small amount (paid for by my own money). I am mad as hell as an outside doctor did not examine me to see if I really needed it or not !
I intend to take this to the supreme court; as I am tired of my rights as a citizen of this country to keep getting taken from me. AMERICA HUH ? Land of the free ? What the hell happened to our CONSTITUTION ; AND THE RIGHTS THERE-IN ?????
are you out of ur mind? i bet if your family member or your self was the one in pain, you would have no problem with them taking painkillers.. hmm i wonder why someone in PAIN would still be taking PAIN KILLERS if they still have a pain issure… ur an idiot
Luis hit the nail on the head, if it was them in pain they would want the long term pain treatment. How do you expect a person to live with out pain medication if they have cronic pain everyday of there life. If you have done everything the doctors have told you to do with back surgery and they told you that they can’t help you anymore and turned you over to a pain clinic. You still have the cronic pain you can’t expect a person to carry on with life as if the pain is not there. If you think you can just stick a screwdriver in your back and see how long you can stay at work and perform your job. This is how bad the back pain is. It’s not like a muscle ache it is nerve pain that the doctors can’t pin point where the pain is coming from. Doctors are able to tell how much pain you are in and if they are a good doctor can manage your pain so that you can have somewhat of a life. Without the pain medication this would be impossible. Are you just trying to kill the people off who are in cronic pain? They would not want to live if they were in so much pain they could not function. A doctor can tell if a person is abusing his or her pain medication. You do not get high on the pain medication if you are in pain and a doctor does have the ability to see this. Please rethink what you are saying and doing to the people who already live everyday in pain and then you are saying take the pain medication away. You Are Not Human and you would not do it to yourself or your family if they were in the same situation. enough said………..
I messed up my back in 2009 and have continued going to back doctors and pain management docs. but work comp is blocking about everything to give me relief and now the GOvernment has decided i just don’t need pain meds. Doc has already cut me back per day and is going to again in Nov. but now with this who knows…. i talked to a case worker recently and she told me i was fine and i can work.. I have a full time job working about50 hrs a wk. but i can no longer do the job i was trained for and have done the last 30 yrs. i asked and still ask. if i can not get any relief from the pain what am i supposed to do. i remember one comment Obama made yrs ago.. if you are not adding to society you are a drain on it. so i guess we are all supposed to jump off a cliff.
I herniated 2 lumbar disc’s in my back on the job and have had a total of 6 surgeries and now have a lot of scar tissue build up causing me severe chronic pain. Now BWC has a doctor that has never seen nor examined me say that my pain medication or muscle relaxant is a necessary treatment for what the BWC certified surgeon screwed up on with my 3 back surgeries so i assume that since there is no other treatments that are cost effective that will help me i should either suffer or end the pain by ending my life…..
I would like to say after 10 years at the same dose my pain has been kept stable and these have been good years my life has been improved not gotten worse do some studies and if you look honestly you will find many long term treatment patients that are living better lives with pain relieved all on medications you claim made lives worse but that have provided continued pain relief and better lives because of it.
.
Don’t let them fool you. It’s all about insurance costs. Comp Lawyers manipulate studies and talk the lawmakers into changing laws to drive up profits.
They could care less if the patient suffers. It doesn’t matter if the patient has not abused the medications for years.
I hope everybody who works for comp suffers their own spine injuries. !!!!!