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Opioid Deaths May Be Starting To Plateau, HHS Chief Says
The American opioid crisis is far from over, but early data indicate the number of deaths are beginning to level off, according to Alex Azar, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, citing "encouraging" results in overdose trends.
[...] In 2017, the number of Americans dying from opioid overdoses rose to 72,000 from 64,000 the previous year. However, according to new provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control, the numbers stopped rising toward the end of 2017, a trend that has continued into the beginning of this year. It is "finally bending in the right direction," Azar said. He added that the death toll flattening out is "hardly a victory," especially at such high levels. Current government statistics show that opioids kill over 115 Americans each day.
[...] On Wednesday, President Trump is expected to sign a bill recently passed by Congress that expands Medicaid opioid treatment programs and workforce training initiatives, and supports FDA research to find new options for non-opioid pain relief.
It's Too Soon to Celebrate the End of the Opioid Epidemic
While we don't know why deaths have begun to fall, experts say there are a few likely reasons. Doctors are prescribing fewer painkillers. More states are making naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses, widely available. And it's possible that more addicts have started medication-assisted therapies like buprenorphine, which is how France solved its own opioid epidemic years ago. Indeed, the states with the biggest declines in overdose deaths were those like Vermont that have used evidence-based, comprehensive approaches to tackling opioid addiction.
[...] Still, it's possible this is a "false dawn," as Keith Humphreys, an addiction expert at Stanford University, put it to me. "Opioid-overdose deaths did not increase from 2011 to 2012, and many people declared that the tide was turning. But in 2013, they began racing up again," he said. Deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl are still rising, as are those from methamphetamines.
Related: President Trump Declares the Opioid Crisis a National Emergency
U.S. Life Expectancy Continues to Decline Due to Opioid Crisis
"Synthetic Opioids" Now Kill More People than Prescription Opioids in the U.S.
Tens or Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Needed to Combat Opioid Crisis?
U.S. House of Representatives Passes Opioid Legislation; China Will Step Up Cooperation
The Dutch Supply Heroin Addicts With Dope and Get Better Results Than USA
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:32AM (4 children)
Too bad Marinol is not as effective as consuming the cocktail of cannabinoids the cannabis plant produces.
I wonder what role access to medical cannabis (37 states is it now?) is having on opioid statistics. Cannabis has been implicated both in reducing various addictions such as opioid and alcohol and being an alternative treatment for chronic pain. In a sane world, we would be investigating whether cannabis can completely replace opioids for pain management. (As with all things, I will believe it when I see the data. I've never needed opioids for pain management, so I have no firsthand experience in the matter.) Maybe we could offer surgical patients cannabis vape? (Well, maybe not vape in a hospital setting.) What do you think? All other things (efficacy for post-surgical pain management) being equal, would you rather have a morphine drip or a bag of cannabis gummies to eat throughout the day?
As an aside, I wish we could take cannabis out of "lol stoners" territory and respect it for the powerful entheogen it is.
I have an "addictive personality" as they say. My name is AC, and I'm an alcoholic. (Recovering that is, in a big way thanks to cannabis and how it helped me see the effect my drinking was having on the people around me. Two years now.) Given the data on opioid addiction, I know I'd rather take my chances with the gummies.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:56AM
Study Finds That Legalized Medical Cannabis Led to a Decline in Medicare Prescriptions [soylentnews.org]
Study: Legal Weed Far Better Than Drug War at Stopping Opioid Overdose Epidemic [soylentnews.org]
Two More Studies Link Access to Cannabis to Lower Use of Opioids [soylentnews.org]
But of course, we get:
Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis [soylentnews.org]
Also see the government's war on kratom [google.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:56AM
I am absolutely serious. Mom got me allergy tested after I got really bad hay fever for the first time in my life - but none of the other students at my high school did.
I figure someone's gro-op bloomed out in the Suisun Marsh. It's part of the Sacramento River Delta and is quite large, easy to hide weed there and very fertile.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday October 25 2018, @04:32AM (1 child)
Congrat's on the two years! :-)
Disclaimer: I'm an ex-heroin addict, have smoked weed for almost 50 years, and have came close several times to alcohol addiction.
Be glad you never went down the opiate path. The pain relief is wonderful, the euphoria is even more so, but the affects on your mind and way of thinking are devastating. The ONLY thing that matters is that next fix, you become amoral and abandon ethics to achieve that feeling again. It's insidious in it's seduction.
Stick with weed, although I would highly(no pun intended) recommend edibles, as there are many bad effects from smoking it. Depending on the carrier fluid for the THC and/or CBD's, vaping can be alot safer to just as bad. Generally vaping is better than smoking, but edibles trump them all.
Marijuana has been erroneously demonized as the gateway drug, but it was, and is, alcohol instead. But only for those like us, with 'addictive personalities'/brain chemistry.
There have been rumors of statistics pointing to a decrease in opiate related deaths in states that have legal weed, and while it sounds plausible, I have not really researched it.
Rhetorical question:I wonder why we have endocannabinoid receptors in our brains? Could we evolved while eating/using cannabis as primates, to take advantage of weed?
Hope this helps some. :-) BTW, if you smoke tobacco, QUIT! All of the other stuff may cause some mental and physical health issues, but smoking tobacco causes health issues that swamp the impact of my heroin, methamphetamine, and alcohol(almost) addictions combined for me. (YMMV)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 25 2018, @04:57AM
It's really quite nice.
I've gone backpacking in the High Sierra a few times, it smells just like weed blossoms.
We have nitrous oxide receptors too - it turns out that nitrous plays a crucial role in reproduction, as it's what signals your William Jefferson Clinton to stand at attention. But I've never heard anyone suggest that humans were "meant" to inhale laughing gas.
There are more than 130 neurotransmitters.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]