June 12. 2008 17:39

Hello there...

This is great that there is a blog for the radio show. I will read all the posts that you do.

I think that the show is one of the best things that is happening in the USA as nobody else seems to be doing something about the drug problems in our society - especially laying down the law on the fact that the prescription drugs are SO over prescribed and the truth about what ACTUALLY happens to someone once they are on them.

Keep up the great work.

Montana

June 20. 2008 07:33

great show larry. great great show. this show should go nationally. its great that you have montana and nicole on your show too to prove that there are people coming in daily with heavy substance misuse probs.

this country is going down the tubes with the excessive rxing. not only with the opiates and benzos but the ssri and amph based add/adhd drugs.

this is a great show that should go national. break that damn silence. im a proud listener in pittsburgh, where rx abuse has lessened and people are now shooting herion cause oxys are too expensive lol.

Keith

June 29. 2008 16:45

Larry, you are doing a great job in educating the public on the dangers of certain prescribed drugs. Everyone needs to understand that many prescribed drugs such as opioids and benzodiazepines have caused addiction and death and this destruction is being allowed to continue. The problem lies with LICENSED PHYSICIANS -- THOSE WHO ARE INDISCRIMINATELY OVERPRESCRIBING AND THOSE WHO DON'T, BUT REMAIN SILENT AND THEREBY CONDONE THEIR COLLEAGUES' DANGEROUS PRACTISES.

I lost a beautiful son to a prescribed medication -- hydromorphone. He was initially prescribed "percocet" for kidney stones and later was prescribed more than 13,000 pills (opioids, stimulants, depressants) by one doctor in a 14 month period. My son was a stong and healthy young man prior to his repeated bouts with kidney stones.

Thank you Larry for your relentless hard work in your efforts to stop this prescription addiction epidemic.

Ada

July 2. 2008 21:41

The idea of legal heroin being available at clinics like the one in Pinellas Park which really don't make any effort to disguise their true purpose--deal drugs. It is so criminal that these doctors are allowed to participate in these scams.

We need to let people know that if someone who gets drugs from these people and injures themselves or others that they should be sued. Maybe financial liability will make these guys look at doing real work.

Steve

July 5. 2008 02:02

Big Pharma Commits the Crime, Doesn’t Do the Time
by the Corporate Crime Reporter
How does street crime work?

You commit the crime, you do the time.

How does corporate crime work?

Big pharma corporation commits a crime and hires a highly paid white collar crime defense lawyer.

Defense lawyer approaches prosecutor and says - let’s make a deal.

You agree not to prosecute the company.

I’ll give you a shell company that does little business but has a similar name. That company pleads guilty to the crime. It no longer sells drugs and thus when Medicare excludes it, it loses nothing. We turn over a couple of executives. They plead guilty. And you promise no jail time.

You can hold a press conference and say - we cracked down on corporate crime.

We can get on with our business of making millions of dollars off average Americans addicted to our opiate of choice.

That’s pretty much what came down last week when the Justice Department went after the maker of OxyContin, the addictive pain killer that addicts will die for.

OxyContin is a Godsend for cancer patients and others in chronic pain.

But it’s also an easy high for thousands of down and out Americans.

Crush the pill and snort it.

It’s like heroin - without the needles. It’s big in Appalachia. You don’t need to ship it in from overseas. You can get it at your local doctor’s office or pharmacy.

Talk to family doctors working in hill country and one of the first issues they raise is Oxy addiction. Abuse is so rampant that some hill doctors have stopped prescribing it. No more break-ins and harassing phone calls from addicts claiming back pain.

Last week, John Brownlee, the U.S. Attorney in Roanoke, Virginia tried to pin the blame where it rightly belongs - on the company and executives who pushed the drug on an unsuspecting public with claims that it was less addictive than other painkillers.

Emphasis on the word “tried.”

If you read the papers last week, you might now believe that Purdue Pharma, the Stamford, Connecticut-based maker of OxyContin, pled guilty last week to pushing OxyContin by making claims that it is less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications and that it continued to do so despite warnings to the contrary from doctors, the media, and members of its own sales force.

You might believe, as the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers reported, “Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to one felony count of fraudulently misbranding a drug.”

One problem.

Purdue Pharma did not plead guilty to this crime.

It was Purdue Frederick that pled guilty.

Why is this distinction important?

Well, if you are a pharmaceutical company and you are convicted of a felony, under federal law, you are automatically excluded from federal insurance programs, like Medicare.

The idea behind mandatory exclusions is clean government - if you commit a serious crime, the federal government isn’t going to do business with you.

Unless you are a giant corporation with hundreds of millions of dollars in profits at stake.

Then you get a deal.

In this case, the deal was brokered by Howard Shapiro, a partner at WilmerHale in Washington, D.C. - the lawyer for Purdue Pharma.

Shapiro did not return calls seeking comment for this story.

Shapiro offered up Purdue Frederick to plead guilty.

What is Purdue Frederick?

We sent an e-mail off to company spokesman James Heims.

We asked - what is the difference between Purdue Frederick and Purdue Pharma?

He writes back immediately.

“They are independent, associated companies. Please let me know if you have further questions.”

Well, yes, we do have further questions.

Why did Purdue Frederick plead guilty and not Purdue Pharma?

No answer.

We call Mr. Heims.

Now he’s busy.

No response.

So, we turn to the press packet sent out by Heidi Coy, the public affairs person for U.S. Attorney Brownlee.

It’s 89 pages.

It contains the Brownlee’s statement, the press release, the information, the agreed statement of facts, the plea agreements with Purdue Frederick, Michael Friedman, the president and CEO, Howard Udell, the company’s general counsel, and Paul Goldenheim, the company’s former medical director.

What doesn’t the press packet contain?

It doesn’t contain the non-prosecution agreement.

And, not surprisingly, out of the hundreds of mainstream news outlets that carried this story last week, not one mentioned the non-prosecution agreement.

The non-prosecution agreement is the one that protects the companies that make the money.

Purdue Frederick takes the hit. It’s the felon. It is excluded from government programs. But so what? We can assume it has little if any government business to lose. (Brownlee says he doesn’t know. The company won’t return calls.)

The more than 200 other affiliated Purdue Pharma companies scattered around the world and listed in Appendix A of the non prosecution agreement get off.

No felony charge.

No exclusion.

Business as usual.

Purdue is a privately held, very secretive company based in Stamford, Connecticut.

It’s controlled by the Arthur Sackler family. Arthur Sackler is the guy who, before he delivered OxyContin, brought to you the marketing for Librium and Valium. Walk on the mall in Washington and you walk by the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur Sackler Gallery.

Art brought to you by Oxy.

New York Times correspondent Barry Meier is probably the most plugged in journalist on the topic. A couple of years ago, he wrote a book detailing the problem titled Pain Killer: A “Wonder” Drug’s Trail of Addiction and Death (Rodale Books, 2004.)

In his statement that he read before the cameras last week, U.S. Attorney Brownlee said that Purdue Frederick is the “manufacturer and distributor” of OxyContin.

Well, as it turns out, they used to be. No longer. Now, that’s Purdue Pharma.

In an interview with Corporate Crime Reporter, Brownlee admits that Purdue Frederick was chosen to plead guilty because “we didn’t want to ban the future sale of the drug.”

Had Purdue Pharma been forced to plead guilty, Oxycontin would have been excluded from Medicare coverage, he said.

“And we didn’t want that,” Brownlee says.

The other document that was not sent out in the press packet was the corporate integrity agreement.

This was the agreement that Purdue Pharma entered into and that requires the company to hire an independent monitor to make sure it doesn’t engage in future criminal activity.

But Brownlee won’t give the name of the independent monitor who has been appointed.

Why not?

He won’t say.

And he says that while all documents in the case weren’t released to the media in the press packet, they were posted on the web site of the federal court in Roanoke.

You a reporter? Go find it.

The bottom line is that Brownlee prosecuted a case that few other U.S. Attorneys would touch. He proceeded against a powerful privately held and secretive pharmaceutical company with major resources at its disposal. He secured a guilty plea against an entity and three top executives.

As part of the settlement, the company will pay over $600 million in fines, restitution and a civil settlement. The three executives will pay collectively over $34.5 million in penalties.

But in the end, he pulled his punches.

Purdue Pharma not charged.

Independent monitor’s name not made public.

And perhaps most importantly, the executives will not face jail time.

Why not?

Brownlee dodges the question.

This irks Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

Wolfe called the fines and guilty pleas “an important message to the drug industry that this kind of malicious, death-dealing behavior will not be tolerated.”

But the government could have come down much harder on what he called “white-collar drug pushers.”

Wolfe pointed out that from 2000 through 2006 alone, according to data from Drug Topics, the news magazine for pharmacists, there have been $9.6 billion in retail U.S. sales of OxyContin. It was one of 25 top-selling drugs from 2000 to 2005 - it was the 11th largest selling prescription drug in 2003.

“The government should have forced the company to disgorge far more of its ill-gotten profits in this case,” Wolfe said.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are languishing in jail for relatively minor drug possession or distribution crimes involving illegal drugs or, in a smaller number of cases, prescription drugs such as OxyContin,” Wolfe said. “Why have the three wealthy Purdue executives, who have pleaded guilty to orchestrating this dangerous promotional campaign, escaped jail time, and why are they paying merely $34.5 million in penalties? The damage to the public from these white-collared drug pushers surely exceeds the collective damage done by traditional street drug pushers. Why do we have such a double standard of justice?”

Ed Bisch

July 9. 2008 16:27

This was sent by Dr. Steve Gelfand but I have his permission to post it here.
One of the best articles I have seen in a long while. We need to make maximum use out of statements in the article pointing out the weakness of the [mis]information about pain disseminated by Purdue and the American Pain Society with their 'bottom line in mind', but with no scientific data to support their promotion for the expanded use of opioids for chronic noncancer pain, which included their 'hyped up' sound bites of "pain as the fifth vital sign" and "pain as a separate disease". Tragically, this was picked up and adopted by thousands of doctors across the nation as a 'green light' to use opioids for anyone with a complaint of 'pain", while over-estimating their benefits and under-estimating their risks.

Steve

www.lasvegassun.com/.../

detoxer

July 10. 2008 16:14

hey larry great show this week(july 06). way to let the public know about that clinic. that needs to stop. just like the cops up here need to bust the dealers in the open air market on the streets of pittsburgh.

its nuts. something has to be done.

i would not wish the pain of the withdrawl from an opiate(any opiate including tramadol) on my worst enemy.

and i was that dude dancing when i got my script. only anouther addict knows the feeling of a big score its like the same feeling as of someone were to give you a free months stay in aruba with everything paid for.


glad to comment again

Keith

July 16. 2008 22:12

Another great show!
My condolences to the Pearson family. Thank you for all your efforts and website JVP1.com
I too was surprised to hear that the Pharmacists' Association offered its full support.....However, upon further reflection it became clear to me that they are looking after their bottom line -- internet pharmacy cuts into their profits. I agree that rogue pharmacies need to be shut down...but legitimate avenues have too many weak links. Pharmacists and doctors must work together to prevent these tragedies. Patient safety must be their top priority, not their bottom line.
Perhaps, the pharmacists on next week's show could explain what they are doing or intend to do to stop this epidemic....and PLEASE no excuses about "confidentiality" and all the other laws that obstruct moving forward.....get them changed to facilitate what's required.

Ada

July 26. 2008 11:41

cant wait to here what dirt was dug on predue. they deserve to die.

no wait they deserve to become addicted to high doses of oxycodone and then come off of it in a jail cell. i bet they dont kno what thats like do they?? i do. it sucks.

this show needs national attention. we need ot do as larry says, and break the freaking silence.

keith

July 31. 2008 21:43

Six years ago today my daughter, Sarah, died of a drug overdose. She was 23 years old. She was able to obtain lortab at an emergency room, where she complained of constipation and a severe stomach ache.

A big THANK YOU to Larry for his continued informed fight against prescription drug abuse.

Narcotics Overdose Prevention and Education (NOPE) Task Force, based in Palm Beach County, provides personal presentations to middle school, high school and college students about the deadly consequences of drug abuse. The task force also supports ongoing efforts to influence anti drug legislation.

www.nopetaskforce.org

Cindy

Cindy

August 6. 2008 03:17

Dealers not Doctors

I was sorry to hear that you and your family went through problems with your son being addicted to opiates however I can't understand how you can blame a doctor for a choice your son made. It was your son who chose to abuse drugs the doctor did not make that choice for him. Here is another example of people not taking responsibility for their own actions.

I'm not sure that I heard you mention your son's age but I am assuming he is over 18 and therefore is a adult. If he's not a adult then if anybody is to blame other then your son for his own poor choices it's yourself for poor parental supervision.

Say your son grows up and owns a sporting goodstore. Someone with a handgun license and all the right paperwork comes in and buys a handgun from your son. That person then goes out and sells the gun to a 20 yr old who kills himself with it well I guess your son should get the death penalty because that makes about the same amount of sense as you blaming doctor's for your son's addiction. Also your calling these 18 -25 yr olds kids to try to manipulate your point. They are not kids they are adults. They are young adults but adults nonetheless and responsible for their own choices.

The other thing your leaving out is that these adults that are dying from using oxycotin are not just using oxycotin, they are abusing the drug and mixing it with other drugs or aclohol or using way, way to much of it. If they had used correctly and as prescribed none of these adults would of died from it. These were adults using it to seek a high not relief from pain. If it wasn't opiates your son was using it would of been coke or crack or some other drug. Your son was trying to get high not get relief from pain. If your using opiates for pain and as prescribed they are not dangerous drugs to use.

When are people going to take responsibility and acceppt the consequenses for their actions instead of trying to always blame someone else for their poor choices. That women didn't force your son to buy her prescription medicine and she didn't force him to abuse them. He chose to seek them out and buy them and he chose to abuse them. Where were you when he was buying them? The doctor is the last person to blame.

I would really like to see adults take responsibilty for themselves. We should not be trying to make adolecense last through the 20's. You have to remember a lot of people you have seen go into your pharmacy probablly look very young and act and dress very young but they are still adults. And most of them are probablly 5 - 10 years older then they look to you because of their clothes and their immaturity.

The doctor's arn't the one's to go after. even if you made opiates illegal tomorrow I gaurentee you whoever wanted them would still find away to get them.Cocaine and weed are all illegal but are all easier for any middle scholler to get then alcohol. The one's that law enforcement should be going after are the one's that are obviously conning doctors and going out and using their prescriptions for their personal gain.And you are right their are tons of people in their 20's faking injuries and pain to get this medication. I gaurentee that 95 percent of anybody under 25 who are on these prescriptions is unemployed for obvious reasons. Law enforcement should be going after the dealers not the doctor's. Anybody masqurading as someone in chronic pain who is seeking out doctors is alrealdy hooked.

Brandon

August 11. 2008 09:24

Brandon, sadly and like many, you have bought into the "myths, stigma, and bias" and are misinformed as to what dependency/addiction is truly all about. Doctors should not be creating or furthering dependency/addiction. We should all be working together to effect change to minimize the risks associated with these very powerful, cunning and highly addictive prescribed narcotics.

Ada

August 12. 2008 20:28

Ada, Sadly and like so many others you live in a world where noone is ever accountable for their own actions. You didn't even bother to address anything releant to my previous post. Why should a doctor be held responsible for the actions of another human being? especailly larry's son whom the doctor never even met! Noo doctor has anything to do with his son's addiction whatsoever. He went looking for drugs, wanted to get high and found soneone selling them. thats all their is to that.

I would also love for you to address that I pointed out the show often trys to manipulate listeners by stating that kids ae dying. Again these are not kids these are adults. Many people in their 20, and early 30's these days still look, talk and dress in away that their physical image and persona gives off one of a kid to someone like larry who grew up in a different generation. A generations where 30 year olds are setlled down, have a morgage, a career and a family. That is not the generation of now. But I assure you that no doctor's are prescribing to minors. 25 year olds are certainly adults and if they choose to commit fraud and deceive doctors then they should be held accountable. You talk about stricter rules and firmer sentencing when it comes to the doctor's? Well if your son is going around doctor to doctor and pretending to be in chronic pain what about his punishment? That fraud, that deceit, thats a felony. What about his punishment? If their were strict sentences and fines for these people who go around deceiving doctors?

So if your going to respond to me Ada respond to the main point of my post. Why is the show trying to give the impression that these are kids who are dying or becoming addicted? No they are not kids. They are adults who sought out prescriptions wether off or the street or by fraud and used way to much or mixed the pills with alcohol or other medications that they should never be mixed with. It seems like noone ever taught you how to be held accountable for yourself and your choices let alone accept conseuences. Sadly enough it is this exact teaching and point of view that does cause kids to become involved with drugs. The reason drug use is so widespread among teenagers is because they know people like you will always feel sorry for them and put the blame on someoneelse. It is because kids know what they can get away with and that and that they will not have any real conseuences if they get involved in drugs that they do. It is people like you who put them in danger then you can imagine! simply by taking the blame off of them and not making them accountable for their choices. Thats where the real tradgedy lies,

Brandon

August 23. 2008 19:55

Larry I was reading the messgage board of the tampa pain clinic anyway I happen to know that prescriptions are prescribed for every 30 days yet appointments are for every 28. Anyway this cinic was semi closing due to the doctor there going on vacation. Many of the patients became veryfrantic when they thought their might be a possibiliy of them getting their meds one day late due to him faxing or mailing sripts in.
I pointed out to them that they should have plenty of leftovers and certainly at least enough not to be worried over the slightest possibility that they may get their script one day late.
The patients became very, very mad at me and started coming up with all sorts of excuses for not having their extras. One went so far as to try and say if you save your leftovers it's hoarding and that she destorys her extra two days of pills she gets every month. I thought this was one of the most supisious excuses I have ever heard! And the nurses at the clinic stuck up for this excuse! If anybody want's to check out this message board and possibly explain that on the boards since your a pharmicist that they should have their extras left over evry month and if they take more then the prescribed amount a day it is abuse. I was just very disturbed and shocked that some of the patients did not seem to understand taking more then you are supposed to a day and not having the leftovers you are supposed to have each month is addictive behavior. How could they not understand this?

Brandon

August 23. 2008 19:58

Also as you see in my previous posts I am all for people who are in need of pain medicine receiving it I was just so disturbed by the excuses these patients are posting.

Brandon

August 29. 2008 02:58

I am glad that this radio exists because there are many people that desperately need advice and information about drugs. Prescription drugs continue to be a living menace for many of us, we need to be aware of that.

Drug treatment

September 27. 2008 00:18

Anyone can become physically dependent upon alcohol under the right circumstances of dose, duration and discontinuation. A person may develop both physical and psychological dependence on the substance. Although many individuals may assume that it’s just a matter of having the will to stop drinking, alcoholism is much more complicated than that.

Alcohol Abuse

October 4. 2008 22:10

I think most people hooked on drugs have too much money or barely any. It's starting to be a cliche of some sort. These are my 2 cents.

arizona mortgage broker

October 6. 2008 15:30

The idea of the show is great. Although everything we are about to discuss here is already talked on TVs, radios and so on, it is good to clear up the main idea and purpose of your show. I'm sure a lot of us we'll find it useful for us and for our health. Good luck!

Office Tables

February 6. 2009 09:32

Wow, I never knew that Prescription Addiction Radio Show - Breaking the Silence. That's pretty interesting...

Generic Viagra

February 28. 2009 12:27

First of all I want to tell you how glad I that this radio exists. I don't know how many people actually know about it's existence but I hope those who know it also listen it from now and then. Prescription drug misuse is a live problem and it keeps spreading considering that the drugs are extremely easy to access. If we can't do anything about forbidding these drugs, the least we can do is educate people about them.

Addiction Treatment

April 18. 2009 23:55

Prescription drug abuse by teens and young adults is a serious problem in the United States. As reported in the Partnership
for a Drug Free America’s annual tracking study

Medical Transcription Course

April 27. 2009 18:30

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June 20. 2009 13:19

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June 24. 2009 13:39

We should of focus on this problem which drug addiction to prevent broken family.

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June 29. 2009 17:43

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June 29. 2009 17:44

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