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posted by martyb on Friday August 11 2017, @11:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-say-emergency dept.

After some initial confusion about the White House's plans earlier in the week, President Trump has followed the recommendation of the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, headed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and declared the opioid crisis to be a national emergency. He has promised to spend "a lot" of time, effort, and money to combat the problem:

Among the other recommendations were to rapidly increase treatment capacity for those who need substance abuse help; to establish and fund better access to medication-assisted treatment programs; and to make sure that health care providers are aware of the potential for misuse and abuse of prescription opioids by enhancing prevention efforts at medical and dental schools.

President Trump also decried a slowdown in federal prosecutions of drug crimes and a reduction in sentence lengths. Activists and policy experts are wary of an enforcement-heavy approach:

Bill Piper, senior director for the Drug Policy Alliance, told CNN Tuesday that stricter enforcement "has never worked" and the President would be "better focusing on the treatment side of things." "A supply side approach to drugs has never worked," Piper said. "That is what has been tried for decades and it has failed for every drug it has applied to, including alcohol during Prohibition. As long as there has been and[sic] demand for drugs, there will be a supply." Trump would not be the first administration to crack down on drug use by focusing on enforcement, but Piper said doing so would play into a desire to "sound tough," not actually solve the problem. "It makes it look like they are doing something even when they are not," Piper said.

Trump also advocated for more abstinence-based treatment to combat the opioid crisis. "The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place. If they don't start, they won't have a problem. If they do start, it's awfully tough to get off," Trump said. That sort of strategy advocates for targeting kids and young adults with anti-drug messaging, evocative of the "Just Say No" ad campaign of the 1980s and early 1990s.

This crisis is serious, folks:

"It is a serious problem the likes of which we have never had. You know when I was growing up, they had the LSD and they had certain generations of drugs. There's never been anything like what's happened to this country over the last four or five years. And I have to say this in all fairness, this is a worldwide problem, not just a United States problem. This is happening worldwide. But this is a national emergency, and we are drawing documents now to so attest."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @05:08AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @05:08AM (#552739)

    Also, if you live in the US and want ibuprofen, I am pretty sure it is over the counter now, at least in California. You can buy it in huge bottles at Costco.

    I don't use it very often but every once in a while when I have nerve pain (back, neck, shoulder, carpal tunnel, etc.) I will take them for a few days until the pain dulls.

    I find it utterly disappointing the way american hospitals are run. Most of the problems they are supposed to treat they create more from instead. I wish auto mechanics could get away with doing that, but they made laws against it, because mechanics are poor, while doctors are rich and often politically connected. Plus the auto repair industry has nothing on pharma as far as lobbying efforts go.

  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:50AM

    by isostatic (365) on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:50AM (#552814) Journal

    Been over the counter for decades in the UK. Quite pricey, about 6c per 400mg pill.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:05PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:05PM (#552914) Journal

    https://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/02/briefing/3882b2_04_wyeth-ibuprophen.htm [fda.gov]

    Since it became available to consumers in 1984, over 100 billion 200 mg tablets of ibuprofen have been sold OTC in the United States alone. Today, consumption of OTC ibuprofen accounts for approximately one third of the market for OTC analgesics. According to a 2002 study by Kauffman et al., ibuprofen continues to be one of the most commonly used drugs in the United States.

    [...] Based primarily on its very favorable GI safety profile at prescription doses, ibuprofen became the first prescription NSAID to be approved by the FDA for OTC use as an analgesic in 1984. At the time of the deliberations that led to its switch, it was anticipated that ibuprofen would demonstrate an improved GI safety profile when used at lower doses over brief periods of time. Accordingly, it was approved for use at single doses of 200-400 mg, up to a maximum of 1200 mg per day. It is important to note that the OTC dose is 37.5% the minimum daily prescription dose. Like the other currently marketed monographed analgesics, the maximum duration for use was limited to 10 days (the duration of use for prescription NSAIDs is not limited).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibuprofen#North_America [wikipedia.org]

    Ibuprofen is commonly available in the United States up to the FDA's 1984 dose limit OTC, rarely used higher by prescription.[51] In 2009, the first injectable formulation of ibuprofen was approved in the United States, under the trade name Caldolor.

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