The Opioid Crisis – The Other Drug Problem
The Next Step for HealthCare Reform – Fighting Drug Addiction on All Fronts
A recent effort by Politico highlights a movement to address the Opioid drug abuse crisis which claims tens of thousands of lives each year (outpacing deaths from car accidents in some regions).
Each day, 44 people in the United States die from overdose of prescription drugs. A big part of the overdose problem results from prescription drugs called opioids. HHS.Gov underestimating, see revised 2015 numbers at drugabuse.gov.
Opioids (legal and illegal) are a unique issue, they are one of the most effective treatments for pain, but they are also highly addictive. Be it Oxycontin, Vicodin, Hydrocodone, Methadone, Fentanyl, Morphine, or Codeine or any other type of opiate, or whether you inject it, snort it, smoke it, or swallow it as prescribed, the potential for abuse is high.
The extent to which people are going in for pain treatment and coming out addicts is staggering.
Since I was a teen (i’m 33) i’ve watched legal Heroin ravage the east coast towns and cities I grew up in. The results being increased crime rates, the spreading of disease, and jails, institutions, and death for the addict, all on the tax payers dime.
I saw people go from a pill in their parents cupboard, to Vicodin, to Percocets, to Heroin almost overnight. Some never knew what drug addiction was until it was too late, and they never knew what hit them when the withdrawals kicked in. Some of them can’t tell their story as they joined the “44 a day”, others are in jail, but most simply don’t run a popular website.
Heroin at Home: Rise of Opiate Use. Addiction came to the East Coast, it came to Minnesota, and if we don’t do something it’ll be coming to your neighborhood soon enough too.A friend who works at a funeral parlor in MA pointed out that the bulk of his business is young men and women who die from opiate overdoses. (See Massachusetts Opiate Addiction Facts).
You wouldn’t know this as an average person, but people don’t start on Heroin, on average, they start on Pharma. Then, if and when they stop, Pharma sells them their methadone too. Methadone is even more addictive than Heroin, nearly impossible to go through the months of withdrawal required to kick it, and thus people end up on it for the rest of their short lives. You and I, as tax payers, fund this (at up to $20,000 a year per addict, for methadone alone).
So to be clear, as a tax payer you fund research for Pharma, treatment for addiction, the costs of jails, the war on drugs, and all the other related costs (never mind the human factors).
With the above in mind, it isn’t that the scientists in labs, or CEO’s in Pharma, the investors, or future lobbyists in government passing short sighted laws that deserve all the blame, rather this is a collective problem.
Whether it’s hip-hop pushing “lean” (codeine and sprite), teenagers who don’t understand the difference between the Eminem endorsed Vicodin and 80 mg of Oxycontin, or the grandma who thought “I don’t do drugs, so I won’t get addicted”, people’s lives are stolen every day. Not just the lives of street addicts, but the lives of normal hardworking people, and the lives of young people who are experimenting with life for the first time. People who are essentially innocent.
The damage is clear, the sources seem pretty clear, but the solutions are more difficult.
We can educate people on the streets, educate people online, take a better look at treatment, or crack down on Pharma, but in truth the problem is complex.
Luckily, the government and grassroots groups are turning their attention toward meaningful change. This is just the sort of reason healthcare reform is so important, and why we can’t let the conversation end at “I don’t like ObamaCare”.
Combatting America’s Opioid Crisis: Heroin’s Antidote.It would be immoral for me not to note the elephant in the room: the drug companies who know the addictive properties and use this to sell drugs (feeding the other addiction, AKA “money”).
Pharma does deserve some blame, but as noted above, so do you and I. The me’s and you’s of the world who aren’t addicts, but who sit idly by investing in Pharma while our brothers and sisters die on the streets, are complicit in the problem when we don’t speak up. That is the truth, deal with it how you want.
Anyway, there is a movement to do something (or at least some small pushes from the CDC, states, and Politico), so now is the chance to speak up for those who can’t or won’t.
From The Opioid Crisis: Changing the Culture of Prescribing:
“Opioid-related deaths have reached an all-time high in the United States. More than 47,000 people died in 2014, and the numbers are rising. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month released prescribing guidelines to help primary care physicians safely treat chronic pain while reducing opioid dependency and abuse. Given that the guidelines are not binding, how will the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services make sure they make a difference? What can payers and providers do to encourage a countrywide culture shift?”
You can read more here:
- List of opiates.
- About the Epidemic
- Facing up to the prescription opioid crisis
- The prescription opioid and heroin crisis: a public health approach to an epidemic of addiction
- Opioid epidemic in the United States
- Improving the Food and Drug Administration’s mandate to ensure postmarketing drug safety
Author: Thomas DeMichele
Thomas DeMichele is the head writer and founder of ObamaCareFacts.com, FactsOnMedicare.com, and other websites. He has been in the health insurance and healthcare information field since 2012. ObamaCareFacts.com is a...
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But back to the job in hand, I said “I don’t want to hear I love you, I’m sorry or anything, I just want to use your dirty cum filled cunt. You just lay back and enjoy, but while you do think very very clearly about what happens when I’m done. Because we are going to have a talk and if your 100 honest and hide nothing, we have a chance, but anything short of that and we are done, OK?” She nodded her understanding, what a picture she was, her mouth bulging with lace, hair all over the place, covered in sweat and god knows what else.
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I pulled her thong down to her knees and instinctively knelt down to lick her pussy (from the front, from behind, sat on top, I adore oral sex), she hissed “NO, just fuck me”, but as she was tentatively balanced, stood up, but with her panties around her knees, I gave her a light push forward onto the bed and was rewarded by a sodden and strangely reddened looking pussy, framed between her bum, legs and lacy panties. This was a target I couldn’t resit, I dived into her, tongue straight in, nose nuzzled against her arsehole, it was amazing, she responded by pushing back, her pussy lips unusually pushed straight over my mouth (her pussy usually needed a bit of work to get her full loosened up). Stacey was grunting, subconsciously rubbing her pussy up and down my face, I had each of her hands held tightly, clamped next to my face, which allowed me to pull her deeper onto me and didn’t allow her squirm forward. I’d been too horned up to notice the obvious signals, but the realisation suddenly hit home.
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I then started to wonder why Stacey hadn’t told me and began to think things, I got myself in a mess wondering if Stacey was having an affair, but was able to rationalise things and put my thoughts down to petty jealousy, after all Tony was there to cock block Gary. Strangely though, with the mix of emotions I’d been feeling, I was quite turned on by my dirty mind wrongly thinking what my wife was up to. With my dirty mind getting the better of me, I shut myself away from the kids in the bathroom and wanked myself furiously at the thought my wife being fucked o the golf course by Gary, Tony even joined my fantasy at one point as I imagined her being bent over in the woods by both men, using her and leaving her full of cum. I came buckets myself at the thought. Immediately afterwards I was overcome by guilt and anger at myself for being turned on by such thoughts. I pushed all that to the back of my mind and went downstairs, to prep the kids evening dinner, which I served before jumping in the shower upstairs in the en-suite.
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With a head full of emotions, anger, lust and confusion. I flipped her over to face me, she immediately saw the look on my face and looking eye to eye, she teared up and quivered “I’m so sorry, I don’t want to lose you” at this point, with the realisation that I’d be licking sweat and spunk from my wifes pussy after she’d been unfaithful with another man, my hard on should have gone, but it was fit to burst. Not only fit to burst, but laid upwards between Stacey and me, rubbing against her dripping pussy, with every slight movement. There was 10 seconds of silence, in which we never lost eye contact. Stacey laid back on the bed, me holding her legs by the ankles, with her sodden panties pressing firmly against my chest. After the eternity like moment of silence, with one hand Stacey pushed my cock inside her, I couldn’t believe how lubricated and warm her pussy was.
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Over the last 15 years we have grown together, both in spirit as soul mates and sexually. At 42 I’m older and have certainly had more experience. She is trusting and open minded, most new things she has tried with me, she has enjoyed and gone on to develop. Sex indoors, sex outdoors, making love, fucking like animals, some rough play, dressing up, we’ve come a long way together. But recently things had gone off the boil, the UK covid lockdown didn’t help, Stacey, me and the kids were cooped up together for a long period, limit privacy and working from home consuming us, probably made worse for me as my masturbating opportunities were also reduced.
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As I leant down I simultaneously thrust into her and kissed her, I whispered in her ear that I cannot believe she let them fuck and cum in her and demanded that she lick every trace of the two men off me. “What, no, no, no, not two, it was just Gary, what do you think . . .” Her sentence was cut short by me pushing her legs down back to the bed, making her thong stretch from side to side of her face gagging her. “JUST GARY” I said “you dirty fucking slut”, as I held her there in that position, I pistoned into her furiously, using my legs, hips and bodyweight, Stacey whimpered and muffled encouragement, after a couple of minutes she was shaking through an orgasm, before tapping me vigorously on my hip, I released her from being pinned. She immediately began talking “that was amazing, the best”. I hooked her legs over my shoulders and carried on driving into her, using my now free hands to squeeze her tits and pinch her nipples. “ I want YOUR cum” and “I’m sorry, I really am, I love you” I cut her off again, this time by pulling her panties off and gagging her with them. Wow they were wet, in hindsight I should have wrung them out over the dirty bitch.
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I then did exactly what I said, I went at her with no love whatsoever, just pounding her, legs held out by the ankles one minute, over my shoulders the next. Hardly ever losing eye contact, I spoke obscenely to her, calling her a whore and a tramp, I said “what a dirty slut she was” to which she shook her head “of course you are, bringing home a pussy and thong full of another guys spunk” I said. “It was a good job, your MY dirty slut” she nodded eagerly at this, “that’s better” I said. I then reached under her and lift her bum with my hands, grinding my cock into her. I parted her bum cheeks and started working the tip of my finger into her arsehole, I asked her “did you let the prick fuck your arse?” she didn’t shake her head or nod at this, she mumbled something through the dripping panties. I carried on humping her whilst clenching her bum with my hands, rubbing her arsehole with my finger. I clamped down with my mouth around the lacy material which was hanging out of her mouth and pulled the panties out of her mouth, she gasped and started nibbling my nipple (she knows I love this). I asked her again “ did he fuck your arse?”. She look up from my nipples and looked me in the eye again and said “no he didn’t, he was fucking me from behind and said he wanted to but I said no, that didn’t stop him pushing his thumb into my arsehole at the same time he growled that he was going to cum” this nearly pushed me over the edge and I could feel my cock starting to swell. Stacey sensed the reaction in me too, adding “I liked it and by that point if he’d asked again, I’d have let him fuck me in the arse” I interrupted her “I’m gonna cum you dirty bitch, I’m . . .” this time the lacy panties were used to cut my sentence short and gag me, covered in cum, sweat, juices and saliva, Stacey pushed them into my mouth and carried on talking “I had a little orgasm quite quickly with him fucking me, must have been the novelty of fucking someone new and it being outside, but when he went from ploughing me with hands on my hips, to sticking one thumb in my bum hole and the other in my mouth to pull me backwards to him, the deeper angle he got into me, plus the feeling of helplessness, pushed me over the edge and a huge orgasm waved over me, my pussy convulsed, which pushed Gary over the edge and he emptied his balls into me, like a someone violently emptying a pot to ensure all the contents would come out.” I didn’t even make it through to the end of her dirty recollection, mid sentence I flushed her pussy out with my cum, whilst still looking her in the eye. But now, I was laid on top of her, cock still rigid inside her, hands still clamped around her bum. My head was over her shoulder buried into the pillow, with her used filthy underwear firmly clenched in my mouth. She then added “I came that hard, that Gary couldn’t remove his thumb from by arse, I had to consciously relax my bum and it still stung taking it out. BUT THAT fuck with you just then tops anything we’ve ever done. Rob, I am truly sorry, but thank you and I do love you. We lay there panting together, for some strange reason I felt as close to her as ever and knew I still loved her. Normal life resumed shortly afterwards, when we heard the kids shouting upstairs that they wanted dessert. Stacey ran to the bathroom, I could see spunk dripping down her legs. I threw my robe on and went downstair
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After dismissing my perverted thoughts, I was getting dry, I heard the front door go, I thought to myself, ‘Stacey’s home, don’t be an arsehole or weird about her not telling you’. When I came out of the en-suite moments later, I startled Stacey who must have rushed straight upstairs, she had already taken her shirt and bra off and was just stood in her golf shorts. She looked hot and flustered and was surprised to see me come out of the en-suite. She mumbled something about being sweaty and needing a shower. I complemented her, saying she looked very fine to me, to which she blushed. I moved over to her and went to give her a kiss and a hug, she turned away to avoid this, which was very out of character. I then nuzzled into her neck, she shuddered and responded by lifting her arm behind her and around me, pulling me into her neck. I left one arm around her neck and massaged her tits, each one in turn, they still amaze me, just over a handful each, but as pert today as they were 15 years ago. Her nipples always stand up with she’s aroused and right now they were on end. We enjoyed this sensual moment, before my hand began wandering down to her shorts. Stacey snapped out of the moment, saying “give me a minute, I’ll want a quick shower”, I said not a chance as I firmly pulled her neck back to me, bring my left hand around her throat softly, turning her head to the side so I could kiss her neck, simultaneously to this, I pushed my right hand down into her shorts, my hand brushed against lace. Stacey half protested again that she needed a shower, I said not a chance as you were wearing some of your nice panties. I thought, this was quite strange as she only wore her nice underwear on special occasions.
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Over the last 15 years we have grown together, both in spirit as soul mates and sexually. At 42 I’m older and have certainly had more experience. She is trusting and open minded, most new things she has tried with me, she has enjoyed and gone on to develop. Sex indoors, sex outdoors, making love, fucking like animals, some rough play, dressing up, we’ve come a long way together. But recently things had gone off the boil, the UK covid lockdown didn’t help, Stacey, me and the kids were cooped up together for a long period, limit privacy and working from home consuming us, probably made worse for me as my masturbating opportunities were also reduced.
Gretchen
I would like to see the CDC separate heroin street deaths from so-called prescription “opiate-related” deaths. Opiates may indeed be a national problem, but when I look at how the CDC reports it statistics, I have grave concerns. By throwing doctor-managed pain patients in the same basket as heroin users, this CDC is clearly inflating numbers, inappropriately combining two very different problems, and inferring that doctor-monitored pain patients are no different than street criminals. AND they’ve given the DEA’s failed War on Drugs a whole new theater of battle to justify their immense budget–the American people, who maybe be battling chronic pain or just need a scrip when to get their wisdom teeth pulled.
ObamaCareFacts.comThe Author
The problem I think is the crossover, that being those who abuse the opioids that are meant to be used for doctor-managed pain. It is actually a large part of the epidemic. I do think it is important to have all the information, and I do think you make good points, but we also need to be realistic about all aspects of the problem. When a person has chronic pain, but then eventually ends up abusing heroin due to being hooked on opioids, we have a problem that is spanning all sides of this (and that is the sort of stuff that is happening all over the country).
Nigel Lott
I am in healthcare in Seattle. Obamacare /ACA is the only insurance group that is authorizing opiate detox currently.
Blue Cross, Blue Shield, OptumHealth, United Behavioral health, ad Infinitum have stopped authorizing opiate detox because it’s not life threatening (the withdrawal symptoms)
To us it’s astonishing when you consider Ryan &Co want to repeal ACA when we have such an opiate crisis .
sarah
None of this addresses the fact that there are so many people who truly are in pain and need these meds just to get through the day with any measure of a quality of life.
Maybe, not the focus of the article, but it seems everyone is being punished because some people misuse drugs.
ObamaCareFacts.comThe Author
I agree. Sometimes it goes to far and the conversation insinuates that those who truly need opiates aren’t important (it seems to seem like this sometimes).
I know for a fact they are important, but many don’t realize how badly our nation is being tore apart by addiction and how many billions are made off of that. If you’ve ever ingested an opioid you need to stand up for both sides here. Addicts and patients are suffering, we need solutions that work for both.
Cheri Cartier
Where can I get help for you son who has a ‘serious’ addiction to opiods, and has for about 15 years. He’s been in and our of jail, and in and out of rehabs – and nothing seems to help. Because of the new awareness from President Obama, I was hoping there are new facilities, classes, centers, counseling….anything that can save my son’s life.
ObamaCareFacts.comThe Author
If he can get on a health plan, including Medicaid through the state, he should be able to coordinate with the insurer and get help. You can also try calling around on a local and state level and seeing if their is any help. The exact options would change by region and health plan. The ACA helps, but there is no specific or general blanket answer.
Christina
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