I recognize Ohio has a huge problem with prescription opiates, but an even bigger problem with heroin. Yeah lets pass some dumb law limiting doctors to writing only five days worth of opiates with a few exceptions. Oh and online drug education what a great assistance! More feel good legislation. Great for drug cartels, street level dealers and neighboring states. Corrupt physicians running bogus pain clinics will find a way as well.
This is a complicated problem and government needs to keep their nose out of it. Here is the link to the story:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...t-seven-days-n740531

make it more inconvenient for people who actually need the stuff.

Maine had told all prescription opiate users that they must wean down to under 100 mmu (morphine measure units?) per day.
I know a few people that have degenerative disk issues in their back that take well over the limit. If they cut back, they will be unable to do their job, needing to go on disability.
Messed up situation all the way around.

If you think anyone need more than 100mg of morphine a day to manage their pain, you're crazy. They're tolerance may have pushed them to that point, but they never should have gotten there in the first place. Narcotics have been being given out like there was no risk associated with their use and we are now finally reaping the effects of this. No other country uses nearly the levels of opioids as us, do they not have back problems? Fibromyalgia? Arthritis? Of course they do, but they do not prescribe high levels of opioids for chronic pain syndromes because they do not work in the long run. Yes, percocet will make the pain disappear for a while, but then you'll need a higher dose as your body's nervous system adapts to the constant stimulation of the mu receptors that opioids provide. These receptors are down-regulated in the nerves, and the nerves then require higher and higher levels of opioids to provide the same suppression of pain signal transmission. Then guess what happens when a new, acute painful stimulus comes along (like a chronic back pain patient that falls and breaks their hip), suddenly, their nervous system is overwhelmed with a painful stimulus that virtually no safe level of medication short of general anesthesia will control.
Bottom line, in my opinion, high potency narcotics should be reserved for acute painful injuries, or terminally ill patients in hospice. Yes, there are those in chronic pain management that do well for years at a time, and I do sympathize with those who deal with chronic pain, but the downsides to society of "Pain is the 5th vital sign" and the advent of the pain clinic is very high. We (medicine and society) should be working harder to find safe and effective treatments (including teaching real coping strategies) to treat the chronic pain syndrome, rather than reaching for the easy, but inevitably temporary, "cure" of high potency, long acting opioids.

Here's a thought. How about making it a law that if a 'doctor' is caught and convicted of fraudulently prescribing opiates, they lose their medical licence for life and are sentenced to 10 years minimum for the offence. Then go out and make a public example of three or four of these scumbags. Make the penalty so severe that it alone should cut down on most of this crap. But instead, government hurts the people most in pain who have little chance of making government pay for their nonsense.

Indeed more misguided gubbermint nonsense.

Do some doctors hand out unneeded prescriptions for pain meds? Sure.

Just how is this insane proposed law supposed to help the people who need the stuff for medical reasons? How long does one have to wait in line at the doctor's office to actually get to see the doctor?

Imagine the lines outside doctors offices when legitimate pain med patients have to get more prescriptions every 6-7 days!!!

Yes, there is a major problem with drug abuse in this country. What is the answer?

IMO, the answer is to make the penalty for illegal drug sales so severe that few, if any, drug dealers are willing to take the chance of getting caught. How about death penalty?

And at most, one appeal of the sentence and execution of sentence within 90 days of sentence.

Huge money to be made by the cartels, etc etc etc and small chance of getting caught, or even successfully prosecuted. If prosecuted, what is the sentence?

Plea bargains have become a way of life in this country.

And how about returning our "prisons" to real prisons? No TV, no fitness facilities, chain gangs doing public service work?

It goes back to the "risk/reward" concept. As long as the reward makes the risk acceptable, people will risk it.

And, not to change the subject, how about the veterans admin actually doing their damned jobs and fix the damned problems instead of simply handing out opioids like candy? Now there is a concept!

I know of a couple of people who were injured on active duty and medically discharged. Both of them ended up buying pain meds on the street because what the VA "doctors" was no longer handling the pain. In both cases, spinal fusions would have solved the problem of unrelenting pain.

Maybe the new administration will actually do something about the VA, but I have little confidence. A bureaucracy so large, so entrenched, and so corrupt, will be very difficult to "clean up".

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Here's a thought. How about making it a law that if a 'doctor' is caught and convicted of fraudulently prescribing opiates, they lose their medical licence for life and are sentenced to 10 years minimum for the offence. Then go out and make a public example of three or four of these scumbags. Make the penalty so severe that it alone should cut down on most of this crap. But instead, government hurts the people most in pain who have little chance of making government pay for their nonsense.

Florida did about 5 years ago. Put some pain clinic (pill mill) owners in jail for a long time. We don't have anymore pill mills here.

Yeah, we just wish our governor would go away, just not to D.C.
This whole war on drugs thing has always been a bunch of feel good do nothing crap.
I hate what drugs are doing to the people of this country. Drug pushers are as low as murderers. Actually some murders are not as bad as some of the destruction the drugs are doing.

But after a surgery I had, I tried to get a refill on a prescription and was told I could not. Yeah it had been over a week or maybe 2 wks, but I was only taking the pain med before I went to bed at night. When I laid down, the pain was so bad I could not sleep. During the day, I could bear the pain, so I did not take the meds then. I made a point to make sure I would not get addicted as I had seen others get addicted.

I wouldn't be so sure that heroin is a worse problem than prescription opiates.

Really, they are the same problem, but there are probably more Vicodin and Oxy junkies than smack junkies.