Prescription Addiction Radio

The radio show has long lamented the ignorance my local newspaper continues to display regarding the growing drug epidemic. The home of the St. Pete Times, Pinellas County, has the highest reported drug related deaths in Florida http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/9256e6e4-67bf-4a02-a7c6-3f1e93fde6c1/2010DrugReport.aspx While the Times will report on the deaths and destruction from drugs that are interchangeable with the heroin drug trade, it appears the paper continues to support an unhindered legal narcotic distribution.

On December 1st, after a major drug chain was to have reported to not fill prescriptions for some doctors in Florida, the Times followed up with an editorial that included: “With drugstore chains now dominating the prescription drug market, any mistake that stigmatizes legitimate doctors’ prescriptions has the ability to greatly hinder their patients’ ability to obtain the drugs they medically require.” http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1204174.ece The phrase “legitimate doctor” has never been defined in the scientific literature. The Times succumbed to a marketing term used by the legal drug mavens.

On Thursday, December 8th, David S. Craig, a pharmacist associated with The Mayday Fund http://www.maydayfellows.org/ submitted an article to the St. Pete Times. Craig’s article displayed how desperate both the pain maven industry has become and the Times remained a willing participant. http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/cancer-patients-denied-needed-pain-treatment/1205203

In the beginning of Craig’s editorial: “Jane is a 40-year-old married woman, a veteran of the Marine Corps and a mother of two small children.” I am assuming Jane is Caucasian. Jane has been diagnosed with cancer and has had a difficult time finding a pharmacist who will dispense her large quantities of oxycodone. While Craig takes issue with a drug chain making a positive decision for the communities in Florida, he ignores that possibly the pharmacists refusing the prescriptions are concerned about the safety of Jane’s children while on the large doses of narcotics.

Craig later states the drug cartel mantra of an “estimated 116 million Americans who suffer from chronic pain and are finding it harder to get the treatment they need.” Publishing a statement implying over a third of the adult population are candidates for derivatives of the opium plant is beyond common sense, but the pain industry and the St. Pete Times have become comical in their plight to protect the industry.

Craig states: “The reality is that many health care professionals, including physicians, pharmacists and nurses, do not receive appropriate training in pain management and how to effectively identify risk factors or common behaviors associated with drug addiction. As a pharmacist, I understand these challenges and have an important role in keeping patients safe and their pain adequately treated.”

It is clear that Craig has put himself in a superior category of identifying individuals who will have a potential problem from the dangers of an opioid drug. From his article, Craig has identified that 40-year-old-married-white women – with children are safe candidates for the lifelong dependence opioids create. For Craig and the Times, it would appear that minorities, men, homeless, unemployed and anyone on a lower socio-economic scale are not safe candidates to dispense narcotics to.

A racially biased and derogatory statement towards who The St Pete Times thinks are susceptible to drug addiction should be retracted by the paper. David S. Craig is an embarrassment to a fellow pharmacist who views every individual with the same concerns regardless of their background or economic standing.

A milestone show again Sunday night. Florida State Representative Jim Frishe started out the show with me. It appears the silence from our elected officials is being broken. It was evident and refreshing that Rep Frishe clearly understood the scope of the growing drug culture in our country and understands more has to be done moving forward. With Rep Frishe’s example, I hope we can all expect that more elected officials will be stepping forward to help the radio show bring business, church and community leaders together to discuss the huge economic damage being created by the increasing proliferation of drugs into our communities, both legal and illegal.

Later in the show the sentencing of David Laffer, the man who killed four people in a Long Island pharmacy last summer was discussed http://www.newsday.com/long-island/records-show-laffer-shopped-for-doctors-1.3330619 Laffer was sentenced to life in prison and his wife for 25 years. Prior to the June 19th killings, Laffer had received 400 pills from five different doctors from June 7th to June 17th. New York State has a “drug data base” available to the medical profession. In a four year period Laffer and his wife had legally obtained 12,000 narcotic containing pills from a number of doctors. It appears that New York’s drug data base was created for cosmetic purposes only.

The radio show found it ironic that most states have what are called Dram Shop Laws. A bar (bartender) can be held liable for a patron’s actions if they are served alcohol while visibly drunk. The bartender has a civil obligation to not serve someone who may be exhibiting dangerous behavior to themselves or possibly someone around them.

This radio show host questions the logic of holding a bartender liable for a person’s safety and the medical profession has a carte blanche on haphazardly passing out narcotics in a cash transaction.

The system has become so upside down that attorney’s have a hard time presenting evidence contrary to the existing “Standard of Care”. The doctor’s cash transactions for the narcotics has effectively become a part of the “Standard of Care” in medicine.

The “Standard of Care” for a bartender is higher than the “Standard of Care” expected from today’s doctor!

Two major topics come to mind this week. Last week’s blog explained the creation of “legitimate use”, legitimate prescription”, “legitimate doctor”, and “legitimate patient”. The word legitimate has been a catch word created by the masterminds of pharmaceutical marketing.

On Sunday night, the radio show explained what a legitimate patient is. The legitimate patient is the person who trustingly goes to their doctor looking for help with a painful condition. The doctor, “in their wisdom”, puts the person on a regimented dose of a hydrocodone or oxycodone containing product. To the person’s credit, they become “legitimized” by not taking more than the doctor prescribed.

As the physical, psychological and emotional effects from the opioid continues to become a factor in the person’s life, they slowly reach the reality that they will suffer severe withdrawal, pain and emotional effects from the discontinuation of the narcotic. The reality of what the narcotic is doing to them moves into the realm of denial.

The legitimate patient becomes a soldier for the drug companies in their denial phase. The drug mavens have convinced the legitimate patients suffering from the legal narcotics and in denial that people want to take their drugs from them (A.K.A. – A radio show). The myth of the legitimate patient is a powerful force in continuing the unhindered proliferation of an uneducated media and future patients.

Educating the public will prevent many from falling into the black hole narcotics create.

It was reported that the price of OxyContin has dropped on the street by 28% from last year to present. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111116006249/en/StreetRx-Study-Year-OxyContin-Shows-Black-Market-Price StreetRx.com is apparently directly or indirectly associated with Purdue Pharma. The information on recent OxyContin pricing was presented to imply that the street demand is less for the newest version of OxyContin.

The reality is that oxycodone is oxycodone. With the easy ability to heat the OP OxyContin in the oven, the price for OxyContin is now on a level with the instant release oxycodone products. The reduced price of the OxyContin should frighten every person, business head, and community leader in our country. Prices are based on supply and demand. The lower the price, the greater the supply!