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from the need-more-opioids-to-fight-the-opioid-epidemic dept.
FDA approves powerful new opioid in 'terrible' decision
The Food and Drug Administration approved a powerful new opioid Friday, despite strong criticism and accusations that it bypassed its own advisory process to do it.
The new drug, Dsuvia, is a tablet that goes under the tongue. It is designed for use in the battlefield and in other emergency situations to treat intense, acute pain.
Known generically as sufentanil, it's a new formulation of a drug currently given intravenously. Critics say it will be incredibly easy for health workers to pocket and divert the drug to the illicit drug market and because it is so small and concentrated, it will likely kill people who overdose on it.
"This is a dangerous, reckless move," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe senior adviser of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. He questions whether there's need for yet another synthetic opioid when the U.S. is in the throes of an opioid overdose crisis.
Sufentanil is described as 5 to 10 times more potent than fentanyl and 500 times as potent as morphine. Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl, but is only approved for the veterinary use of tranquilizing large animals. Sufentanil is the strongest opioid painkiller available for use in humans.
Cannabis and kratom? Exercise caution!
Also at STAT News, NPR, and The Hill.
See also: People on front lines of epidemic fear powerful new drug Dsuvia
Related:
Opioid Addiction is Big Business
Heroin, Fentanyl? Meh: Carfentanil is the Latest Killer Opioid
Study: Legal Weed Far Better Than Drug War at Stopping Opioid Overdose Epidemic
President Trump Declares the Opioid Crisis a National Emergency
Study Finds Stark Increase in Opioid-Related Admissions, Deaths in Nation's ICUs
FDA Blocks More Imports of Kratom, Warns Against Use as a Treatment for Opioid Withdrawal
Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
U.S. Life Expectancy Continues to Decline Due to Opioid Crisis
FDA Labels Kratom an Opioid
Two More Studies Link Access to Cannabis to Lower Use of Opioids
"Synthetic Opioids" Now Kill More People than Prescription Opioids in the U.S.
U.S. Opioid Deaths May be Plateauing
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 04 2018, @08:53AM (1 child)
I don't disagree with the sentiment. Nontheless, you don't need suicidal tendencies to overdose, if someone wants a greater buzz they'll eat more of the stuff, packaging instructions be damned.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday November 04 2018, @09:44AM
When the AC mentioned packaging regulations, I assumed that the AC was referring to the drugs being pure and containing whatever is on the label.
From this drug propaganda site comes these true fax: [drugabuse.gov]
If you look in the related stories in the summary, you'll find that one major problem of the opioid crisis is that heroin users are getting heroin mixed with stuff like carfentanil. It's more potent and thus a cheaper high, but a miscalculation on the dealer's part could easily cause hundreds of users to die from overdose.
Likewise, an "acid" blotter could contain any number of similar substances rather than LSD. For example, 25C [wikipedia.org] or 25I [wikipedia.org]. The size/mass of a soaked blotter does not give the user any clue to the amount and kind of active substance that is contained within. The typical dosage of different substances could be an order of magnitude or more apart. Examples:
https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_dose.shtml [erowid.org]
https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/2ci_nbome/2ci_nbome_dose.shtml [erowid.org]
Even though the common dose for 25I could be ten times that of LSD, it will fit on the same blotter paper just fine.
In the scenario where we legalize all recreational drugs, you could buy your drugs from companies that have to comply with health, safety, and labeling regulations. So instead of getting heroin, meth, MDMA, etc. of varying levels of purity (sometimes 0%), you could get pharmaceutical-grade products that are exactly what they claim to be.
An interim step would be to expand drug testing at places like music festivals. These operations could be given grants or explicit legal protections. Or permanent walk-in labs could be set up, at which anybody could bring in drugs for testing, no questions asked.
Festival drug-testing shows a way to reduce harm [economist.com]
First ever pill-testing trial at Australian music festival [theguardian.com]
https://dancesafe.org/ [dancesafe.org]
Another packaging regulation: organic certification and enforcement of bans on certain pesticides/chemicals. For decades, the vast majority of cannabis has been illicitly grown. Can you trust some illegal grower (who you haven't met, you only see a dealer) to not use banned and potentially dangerous pesticides?
Today, a lot of cannabis in the U.S. is now quasi-legally grown (and it can be illegally shipped from a "legal cannabis" state to other states, retaining labeling info). It's more clear what strain of cannabis you're getting, where it's coming from, etc. And some companies are touting their "organic cannabis" and best practices:
https://www.coloradopotguide.com/colorado-marijuana-blog/article/what-organic-cannabis-means-for-the-marijuana-industry/ [coloradopotguide.com]
Decades ago, who knows what kind of crap was on the weed that people were smoking? Today and further into the future, you'll be able to obtain "clean" cannabis.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]