Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Chris McGreal: Don't blame addicts for America's opioid crisis. Here are the real culprits

America’s opioid crisis was caused by rapacious pharma companies, politicians who colluded with them and regulators who approved one opioid pill after another


Of all the people Donald Trump could blame for the opioid epidemic, he chose the victims. After his own commission on the opioid crisis issued an interim report this week, Trump said young people should be told drugs are “No good, really bad for you in every way.”
The president’s exhortation to follow Nancy Reagan’s miserably inadequate advice and Just Say No to drugs is far from useful. The then first lady made not a jot of difference to the crack epidemic in the 1980s. But Trump’s characterisation of the source of the opioid crisis was more disturbing. “The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place,” he said.
That is straight out of the opioid manufacturers’ playbook. Facing a raft of lawsuits and a threat to their profits, pharmaceutical companies are pushing the line that the epidemic stems not from the wholesale prescribing of powerful painkillers - essentially heroin in pill form - but their misuse by some of those who then become addicted.


In court filings, drug companies are smearing the estimated two million people hooked on their products as criminals to blame for their own addiction. Some of those in its grip break the law by buying drugs on the black market or switch to heroin. But too often that addiction began by following the advice of a doctor who, in turn, was following the drug manufacturers instructions.
Trump made no mention of this or reining in the mass prescribing underpinning the epidemic. Instead he played to the abuse narrative when he painted the crisis as a law and order issue, and criticised Barack Obama for scaling back drug prosecutions and lowering sentences.
But as the president’s own commission noted, this is not an epidemic caused by those caught in its grasp. “We have an enormous problem that is often not beginning on street corners; it is starting in doctor’s offices and hospitals in every state in our nation,” it said.
The Guardian: Don't blame addicts for America's opioid crisis. Here are the real culprits

From Naked Capitalism which Andrew Anderson pointed out:

Dr GABOR MATÉ  

We have to look at what is the pain that people are trying to escape from. For that, there are two major causes. One cause is childhood trauma. We talk about how childhood trauma actually affects the brain in such a way as to make it more susceptible to addictions later on. Childhood trauma is one source of deep pain and all the addicts I worked with have been traumatized significantly so. That’s what the large scale studies in the US shows about it, the more trauma in childhood, exponentially the greater the risk of addiction. Childhood trauma is a huge problem in our society and in American society.

The other question is, what’s going on right now? That’s stress. What we also know is that stress makes the brain more susceptible to addiction and stress also makes people more desires of escape from the stress. If you look at what’s happening socially, economically, politically, culturally, is increasing insecurity, increasing stress, increasing uncertainty, increasing difficulty for people. Therefore, people will turn to short-term measures to escape those difficulties, or at least the awareness of them, by escaping into addictions, including drug use. What we’re looking at is, A, childhood trauma, and B, severe social stress. It’s not surprising that the areas where Trump got the greatest support are areas of great social stress.

6 comments:

Andrew Anderson said...

America’s opioid crisis was caused by rapacious pharma companies, politicians who colluded with them and regulators who approved one opioid pill after another

Not really. See https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/08/opioid-crisis-treating-root-causes-addiction.html.

And from the Bible:

It is not for kings, O Lemuel,
It is not for kings to drink wine,
Or for rulers to desire strong drink,
For they will drink and forget what is decreed,
And pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
Give strong drink to him who is perishing,
And wine to him whose life is bitter.
Let him drink and forget his poverty
And remember his trouble no more.
Open your mouth for the mute,
For the rights of all the unfortunate.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.
Proverbs 31:4-9

The real culprits are our unjust fiat and credit creation systems which have systematically dis-employed people without just compensation, those who defend the injustice of those systems, and so-called Bible believers who ignore or distort Scripture wrt justice.

Dan Lynch said...

A different take:

"The very heart of addiction and what drug use is all about -- it's all about an attempt to escape from desperation. ... the primary question in any addiction, but especially in opioid addiction, is not why the addiction, but why the pain?"
.
"There are two major causes. One cause is childhood trauma."
.
"The other question is, what's going on right now? That's stress. What we also know is that stress makes the brain more susceptible to addiction ... If you look at what's happening socially, economically, politically, culturally, is increasing insecurity, increasing stress, increasing uncertainty, increasing difficulty for people."
.
"When people go to rehab facilities, the attention and the emphasis is put strictly on the behavior of addiction and trying to get them to stop the behavior and not on the causes that made them addicted in the first place."

Andrew Anderson said...

Dan,

That reminds me of people in the Soviet Union who disagreed with the system there - they were obviously mentally ill and were put in mental wards!

Tom Hickey said...

That reminds me of people in the Soviet Union who disagreed with the system there - they were obviously mentally ill and were put in mental wards!

The opposite of the US where they put criminally insane people in the regular penal system and they end up in solitary confinement.

Noah Way said...

This is the same reason marijuana is a federal schedule 1 drug. Pharma profits would crash if you could grow your own meds.

Tom Hickey said...

same reason = follow the money