That is one HELL of a lot of pain pills.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...6-500-opioid-n843821?cid=par-xfinity_20180202
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...6-500-opioid-n843821?cid=par-xfinity_20180202
Holy Shiat. Dem, have you heard about this?!
- Thread starter LafayetteBear
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I read a article recently that West Virginia has, per person, the LEAST amount of teeth in the whole USA. So maybe they're just using all those pills to fill-in the missing gaps?
I didn't post that story to take a shot at West Virginia. I'm just stunned that a community could ever tolerate THAT level of opioid use, particularly for that length of time. The people who own these two drugstores likely made a mint, but at what cost to the community?
Yeah, I'm all too aware. The state was flooded with pills over the last 20 years. Highest OD rate per capita in the nation. There were a lot of fake scripts, and a lot of people selling pills. Then the pill supply tightened up, and heroin has replaced it. Little fentanyl in the heroin, and Bingo! I see dead people.
This is way more deadly than the crack epidemic. Way more.
They say the toothbrush was invented in WV. if it had been invented elsewhere, it would be called the "teethbrush".
Thanks for reminding everyone that hatred is a Penn State core value. No culture issue here. Let’s have a laugh over people dying.
This story is the tip of the iceberg. Those drugs are being used to fill prescriptions. Who are writing those prescriptions? Who are referring these “patients” to these doctors? I wonder to which politicians workers comp attorneys donate?
This portion of the opioids crisis will never be resolved without reform of the core issue, which is abuse of the workers comp system. While helping many in need, that system is also a conduit to abuse and death. But there is too much money and political connections to reform that system. Politicians want to maintain their funding sources, no matter how many people die from it.
Want proof. Things are so bad that even the Philly Inquirer was compelled to write a story on such a well known Philly law firm and its relationship to doctors and pharmacies. Their billboards are all over, as are their TV ads. Where is the PA AG? Don’t want to dry up a source of campaign comtributions. As always, follow the money.
Lol. Nice guess, but there are only about a dozen WC lawyers left in WV. That system got broke about 15 years ago. The whole thing is crooked. The pills are being SOLD on the street...maybe in your town, to your kids.
It is a terrible problem, but WC lawyers have zero to do with it. Big Pharma, and pill peddling docs. Last think we need is a pretend Philly solution to a real WV problem.
My doctor friends are hopeful that medical marijuana will replace opioids for pain management. Medical marijuana does not have the addictive properties of opioids. And marijuana does not have the ‘street value’ of opioids. As noted in this thread opioids have become a kind of money in our country, with tragic effects.
There's a story in the book Dreamland anout oxycodone pills becoming money in Portsmouth Ohio.
People would steal some stuff from Wal-Mart. If it was $60 retail you could buy it with a certain number of pills which amounted to 30 bucks. People paid their remt in oxy.
I don't think Mary Jane has anywhere near the pain releaving properties
Unfortunately, Mary Jane does not have anywhere near the pain relieving properties of opioids. Having come of age in the 60's and having had both hips replaced in the last two years, I have experience with both. MJ is not the answer.
You are right, medical marijuana is not the answer for everyone, especially for someone like yourself who has undergone major surgery. However for someone with, say, simple back pain or wisdom teeth removal, medical marijuana is a better pain management choice than opioids.
When’s the last time anyone called it Mary Jane?
I get what your saying but I think what the conventional or non conventional thinking is that its the degree of pain that the Weed would relieve. Instead of using a sledge hammer to swat a fly.
The opioid crisis is the fault of the drug company that made OxyContin. They allowed it to be made so that the continuous release vehicle would turn liquid when heated. That allowed it to be injected. That was the start. They could of changed the vehicle but refused. It’s literally ALL THEIR FAULT.
Bad in southern Ohio too along the WVa border--same kind of pill mills.
Exactly, and that was the problem. In a lot of places, these powerful opioids would be prescribed to children and teenagers for relatively minor ailments like a wisdom tooth extraction, and would be prescribed to adults for a backache or a bad shoulder. Did everyone who was overprescribed develop an addition? No, but on a grand scale there are a whole lot more people who were given the opportunity for addiction to take hold that really didn’t need to have been given that opportunity for whatever was ailing them.
Will marijuana help alleviate everyone’s pain? Probably not. But it’s probably not going to send them on a path that ends in a fent overdose, either. And that’s the danger that needs to be addressed, and it’s what overprescribing opiates has led us to.
let's see - someone jokes about WV = All Penn Stater are haters - um OK that makes perfect sense, glad you didn't generalize too much.
If you get the chance, watch the documentary "Heroin(e)". It was on Netflix a few months ago, but it highlights the work that three women are doing in Huntington to battle the opioid epidemic. I think it was nominated for an Oscar as well.
As someone who went to school there, it's sad to see how bad it has become.
As someone who went to school there, it's sad to see how bad it has become.
I hate West Virginia jokes. It's very Pitt-like and is about as funny as a bus full of crippled children.
It’s bad there, but It was a bit overblown in the documentary.
However, when you have a city that is on the rise in all crimes, especially drugs, and the state cuts their police force in half due to budget cuts, what do they expect. The policemen on the force spend much of their time sitting at desks answering phones because all their clerical people were let go as well.
The potency of the MJ you had in the 60s is nowhere near the potency it has today. No saying it’s up to the opioid level, but it has increased its potency quite a bit.
It has been exposed. Been studying it a long time, in fact. Purdue lied to the doctors, big time, too, though the docs have no excuse for believing it.
not really. They spend most of their time sitting outside of a bar waiting for somebody to come out, so they can pop them for a DUI, collect their $500 spif from some government agency. A DUI arrest takes them off of their shift for about 8 hrs to fill out paperwork etc. All because some guy had 4 beers when they should have only had 3. That's an excellent use of the resources. they have.
Both my kids went to school there and my son is a senior there now....they rarely see cops anywhere (and I’m sure my son spends his fair share of time at the bars). They don’t have the manpower to do much of anything.
I live here, this is what my friends that work in LE tell me. Several stopped working shifts with some officers because that's all they did (bust people for DUI thus taking them off of shift) . A US Marshall, a good friend, always said, you could ride down 5 th ave in Huntington, with a stolen safe hanging out your trunk, and as long as you arent acting drunk, no one will stop you!!
Must be a money issue as my pain clinic requires pill counts and routine testing to ascertain if you are using the prescriptions in accordance with their prescribed directions. I never thought of people not taking their prescriptions until my wife, medical profession, told me that some do not take their prescribed pills and then sell them. That has to be a blown diagnosis and drug seeking as if you really have a need, constant pain, then you would not sell any, you would have to use them.
Pill mills, doc's on the take and lack of scrutiny of this industry is a big problem. Ohio cracked down several years ago but still is reporting massive death tolls from heroin (never prescribed) and illicit, illegal fentnyl death rates. I just read that China is shipping fentnyl into the country through the USPS for big money.
Illegal sale of illegal drugs are a major problem here although prescribed pills from pill mills is likely not completely under control although more scrutinized.
With electronic records I would think the ability of LE to monitor drugs prescribed by suspicious entities would be easier than ever but the privacy aspects would have to be addressed.
Pill mills, doc's on the take and lack of scrutiny of this industry is a big problem. Ohio cracked down several years ago but still is reporting massive death tolls from heroin (never prescribed) and illicit, illegal fentnyl death rates. I just read that China is shipping fentnyl into the country through the USPS for big money.
Illegal sale of illegal drugs are a major problem here although prescribed pills from pill mills is likely not completely under control although more scrutinized.
With electronic records I would think the ability of LE to monitor drugs prescribed by suspicious entities would be easier than ever but the privacy aspects would have to be addressed.
Sometimes--some people also have more pain tolerance than others. And the drugs work differently on some--I have a friend whose husband is not affected much in any pain-killing way by many anesthetic drugs.
Very true, we are all different. It takes more for me to feel any effect on pain but now I have a pump with direct spinal injection so I don't have to take many pills. Just had a failed pump replaced, it took four months of misery and torture to have the old one removed and the new one implanted but it is so much better now. I'm on a lower dose now which is great and the steady flow is so much better than the up and down pain reduction of the pill routine.
It may be the wave of the future having pain pumps and MJ for chronic, intractable pain cases. Nothing works for everyone so a variety of drugs are required. And, depending on the type of injury/accident that is causing the pain or disease the diagnosis varies as does the medication and dose. I know there is a problem but heroin and most fentnyl deaths, which account for a higher death rate due to concentration level variance in illegal production, do not come from pill mills or bad docs. Most fentnyl is dispensed as a patch as far as I know which would be far more difficult to abuse imo. I can't use it due to side effects.
