OxyContin – In Search of the Truth
For many years, manufacturers of opioid narcotic painkillers have fostered three beliefs in the minds of the general public that have enabled them to continue to ply their trade without effective sanction or censure.
Firstly, there is the widely held belief that synthetic narcotic opioids offer the only effective pain relief to both the terminally ill, and those in chronic pain. People need narcotic pain relief, and this should not be denied them.
Secondly, when opioid narcotics are used as prescribed there is no risk of physical or psychological dependence, addiction or overdose. Use your painkillers as prescribed, and everything will be fine.
Thirdly, as no one dies or suffers an adverse reaction when using narcotics as prescribed, any one who dies or suffers an adverse reaction must have, in some way, done the wrong thing, and so is the author of their own misfortune.
The DEA mounted a challenge to this stone wall position against responsibility or liability when it re-examined toxicology statistics for oxycodone, and specifically OxyContin as a cause of death. The results demonstrated, in absence of better data to work from, that OxyContin was associated with 15%, and was a most probable factor in 49% of 949 oxycodone related deaths.
Although the DEA report specifically found that polydrug toxicologies, in many of the victims – does not minimize the significance of the role of OxyContin in these deaths, industry used the polydrug findings to support a position that the only abuse of OxyContin occured at the hand of the user.
Since 2002, official inquiries into deaths and adverse reactions from use of opioid drugs have tended to follow the line that they are inquiries designed to investigate illicit abuse of prescription drugs, deflecting attention from due inquiry into the possiblity of prescription drugs used as prescribed being a direct cause of many fatal and unintentional prescription narcotics overdoses.
In groundbreaking work, by both Dr Dhalla and Dr Korff a new picture has begun to emerge.
Dr Dhalla has been responsible for independent research that deals with clustering. He identifies a relationship between having a prescription issued by a doctor in the top bracket for numbers of prescriptions issued for opioid painkillers, and being someone who dies of opioid related causes.
Variations in prescribing, at the level of the individual doctor, appear to be related to opioid related mortality.
The risk of overdose from prescription opioids increases with the dose prescribed according to a report cited by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. Not only are higher doses more risky, but they would appear to contribute little, if anything at all, to increased pain relief.
Dr Korff of the Group Health Research Institute, established since 1947 for research and development of better traditional healthcare, has conducted research that takes the focus off the war on illicit drugs, bringing attention directly to the increasing problem of narcotic drugs, issued on prescription.
Blanket statements that have been made that suggest narcotics are safe to use when issued on prescription fail to take into account that prior to 2010, doctors generally had no care plans, no specific training in pain management or addiction issues, and were widely divergent in their individual approaches to appropriate prescribing for chronic pain in their patients.
Although the incidence of illicit use occurs with opioid drug prescription, indications are that the majority of prescription users of opioid pain drugs do not use drugs other than as prescribed, and that the incidence of prescription painkillers available on the street, is proportionate to levels of prescription by authorizing doctors.
Less than 4% of prescription narcotics abusers obtain their supply from a dealer or a stranger – it is family, friends and the local doctor who facilitate supply of prescription narcotics in around 96% of cases.
Independent alcohol and drug addiction recovery specialist, Narconon International has been contributing to the availablity of information, in this field, for the purpose of increasing public awareness of the risks of using narcotics, whether on prescription or illicitly and welcomes the further initiatives that enable progress towards better solutions in pain management for all.
Narconon holds to a strictly no drugs policy in the area of addiction recovery, supported by current medical opinion that not all pain is bad, nor should it be thought of being always in need of automatic medication. Using methods that enable the body to fully mobilize endogenous biochemicals for pain management and recovery of good health is ethical and causes no harm – in fact generates in the body a vast potential energy for recovery from drug abuse and addiction, and co-morbid disorders of mind and body.
The answer for those who are seeking to find the truth about drug use is that all drugs cause harm to the body, at different levels of toxicity.
To get clean from drugs, recover good health and become free of drug addiction – people need to rethink their entire approach to drug use in healthcare today, and in addiction recovery.
