The Opiate Epidemic Is Coming To A Suburb Near You

1. John Burton, the head of the largest medical provider in western Virginia, said, “I can remember telling my residents, ‘A patient can’t get hooked on a 14-day supply of opioid pills.’ And I was absolutely wrong.” Fully three-quarters of those who end up dead from opioids began this way: with that first pill of OxyContin.
2. In her new groundbreaking book, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, Beth Macy chronicles the in-depth story of lives lost and communities impacted in a pills-to-needles progression that begins with a pain-killer called OxyContin.
3. The myth fueling the increase in pain-killer prescriptions was best summarized by Purdue Pharma’s David Haddox as he touted OxyContin for all kinds of chronic pain, claiming “it was safe and reliable, with addiction rates of less than 1 percent.” (Subsequent, unbiased studies put the addiction rate as high as 57 percent).
4. Most young suburban opioid users are introduced to pills that are traded and passed around like hors d’oeuvres at “pharma parties.” Halfway into Macy’s book, she pleads with the reader to get up, this moment, go to the medicine cabinet, and throw away any old prescription pills left over from surgery.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/18/the-opiate-epidemic-is-coming-to-a-suburb-near-you/