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Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

theguardian.com

201–202 of 202 posts

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#201
post #22

From TFA: “It’s so easy to demonise Purdue and the Sacklers. I agree that what they did was terrible. I think a number of them should be in jail. But I’ve thought for some time that the issue behind it all is the structure of the system,” he said. I really do get that sentiment, but IF the USA legal system had properly prosecuted Purdue execs from the get-go - there's a reasonable chance others would have been less i…

Check out the book empire of pain. It goes back the beginning of the Sackler rise and covers how we go to where we are today. The problem I have with your statement about the legal system is IMO Purdue and the Sacklers corrupted the justice department, legal system, and various Federal agencies. This was not some overnight thing. This took decades of works by multiple generation of the family. The system we have toda…

Thanks for the recommendation - added to my burgeoning tbr list. I've seen some dramatised documentaries on the subject (I think it's pulled ahead of Theranos documentaries now), and I'm sure there's a lot more nuance than is covered in screen retellings.

Though Dopesick did make it fairly clear that federal agencies had been corrupted, as part of the original approval granting process. They didn't properly explore that angle, unfortunately.

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#202
post #42
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t stop OD, but it reduces OD because it eliminates one type of very common OD: people taking seemingly safe quantities of drugs that have been laced with fentanyl.

Is that common? I'm not trying to deflect, but do you have statistics for that? Because I've never seen stats to back that up, other than that illegal synthetic opioids are the leading cause of OD. Those aren't necessarily the same thing, and I would like to know more about the actual reason behind OD's.

Statistics are fuzzy on this, because you can’t always positively determine intent, to separate accidental overdose from suicide.

The number of overdose deaths are spiking, driven by fentanyl. That is 100% fact based.

Now you have to make a qualitative judgement: I think most ODs are accidental when this is studied. Did a whole shitload of drug users just become unusually suicidal? I would say it’s safer to assume “no” unless you see evidence to the contrary.

http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/sapc/MDU/SpecialReport/Fent...

Look at figure 2 here: https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...

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