Writing for the Reason Foundation, Jacob James Rich and Robert Capodilupo tell us what we already know – that Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) may have had a purpose when first initiated but that time has passed. Now the programs, which are intrusive and possibly a HIPAA violation, serve only to drive up black-market drug use.
opioid overdose deaths
Dr. Bloom has written eloquently and often about individuals with chronic pain, caught-up in opioid guidelines designed to reduce the deaths due to drug overdoses. But many, if not most of those deaths, are due to despair. Wouldn’t it be better to treat this problem and ease the guidelines on individuals in chronic pain that are “collateral damage?”
A fact-checking site called PolitiFact weighs in on the validity of the claim that opioid deaths decreased in 2018, thus supposedly marking the first time we are getting control of the "opioid epidemic." Let's fact-check the fact-checkers. Plus, Andrew Kolodny dines on his own words.
Here is yet more evidence that fentanyl, rather than prescription drugs, is fueling the opioid crisis. It's time to add illegal drug cartels to the list of defendants.
Not that we needed it, but there's now even more evidence that prescription analgesic opioids play a very small part in fatal overdoses that continue to plague America. How small? According to a new study published in Public Health Reports, let's just say: get out your magnifying glass.
The opioid crisis has its villains, physicians, Big Pharma and illicit fentanyl. But an economic lens points to another driving force: Trade policy?