The Opiate Epidemic:

Unlike previous drug problems in the past, this epidemic did not begin on the streets via narcotic traffickers or illegal laboratories. It began at the heart of America’s corporate and medical establishment. Many Americans start out on prescription medications for pain relief. But when they can no longer get them via their doctor, they move onto illegal drugs. These include opiate pills being sold on the street and heroin. These drugs are often laced with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that’s behind the sharp rise in overdoses. The initial promotion and marketing of OxyContin was an organized effort throughout 1996–2001, to dismiss the risk of opioid addiction. Purdue Pharma hosted over forty promotional conferences at three select locations in the southwest and southeast of the United States. Coupling a convincing "Partners Against Pain" campaign with an incentivized bonus system, Purdue trained its salesforce to convey the message that the risk of addiction was under one percent, ultimately influencing the prescribing habits of the medical professionals that attended these conferences. Purdue Pharma published a video titled "I got my life back" stating that Oxycontin is a safe, non-addictive long-term chronic pain reliever. Of the six featured patients in this video, two are now deceased for reasons relating to their opioid addiction.

In 2007, Purdue Pharma, the company that makes the painkiller OxyContin and three of its current and former executives pleaded guilty in federal court to criminal charges that it had misled doctors and patients when it claimed the drug was less likely to be abused than traditional narcotics. That claim became the linchpin of an aggressive marketing campaign that helped the company sell over $1 billion worth of OxyContin a year. Purdue Pharma, based in Stamford, Conn., heavily promoted OxyContin to doctors like general practitioners, who often had little training in treating serious pain or in recognizing signs of drug abuse. By 2000, parts of the United States, particularly rural areas, began to see soaring rates of addiction and crime related to use of the drug. John L. Brownlee, the United States attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said the impact of Purdue’s marketing of OxyContin had resulted in rising crime rates, teenage drug addiction, deaths and other problems. OxyContin abuse became so widespread that the drug was dubbed "hillbilly heroin." The three men — Michael Friedman, the president; Howard R. Udell, its top lawyer; and Dr. Paul D. Goldenheim, its former medical director — led Purdue at the time of the crimes. Prosecutors decided to investigate Purdue Pharma after bringing cases against drug addicts as well as local doctors accused of illegally prescribing the drug. In 2007, Purdue paid $600 million in fines after being prosecuted for making false claims about the risk of drug abuse associated with oxycodone. Today, the largest distributors are Cardinal Health, McKesson and Amerisource Bergen.  

In 2010, there was a rapid increase in deaths from heroin abuse. As early efforts to decrease opioid prescribing began to take effect, making prescription opioids harder to obtain, the focus turned to heroin, a cheap, widely available, and potent illegal opioid. Deaths due to heroin-related overdose increased by 286% from 2002 to 2013, and approximately 80% of heroin users admitted to misusing prescription opioids before turning to heroin. Heroin is commonly injected, which puts users at risk for injection-related diseases like HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, skin infections, bloodstream infections, and infections of the heart. In 2013 as an increase in deaths related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. The sharpest rise in drug-related deaths occurred in 2016 with over 20,000 deaths from fentanyl and related drugs. The increase in fentanyl deaths has been linked to illicitly manufactured fentanyl (not diverted medical fentanyl) used to replace or adulterate other drugs of abuse.

Current effects to prevent overprescribing have been met with a lot of pushback from the pharmaceutical industry. They rationalize that the billions of dollars they are making means that they are helping more people than they are harming. They insist that only those who are diverting and misusing their drugs to get high are responsible for the epidemic and not those that are legitimately prescribed the drugs. Bigphama - one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, hands out millions to politicians on each side of the political divide.

The opiate epidemic has ravished the workforce in the US. There have been over 63,600 deaths from overdoses in 2016. Numbers increase as addicts switch to opiates from unreliable sources. US Midwest states saw the highest jump in misuse – including Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio. This has had a huge impact on the economy – because this problem is found mostly in Americans of prime working age. Addiction is now keeping significant numbers of them out of the workforce. It’s costing the country dearly in lost wages and productivity. Between 90,000-170,000 people abuse opiates in Ohio. This costs the economy around $6.6-$8.8 billion annually. The cost to the entire US has reached £500 billion. Much of that is because opiate addiction is highest amongst people of working age. The labor pool is shrinking. Even when people are hired, many lose their jobs because they are testing positive for opiates after undergoing a random drug test.

Fentanyl, a newer synthetic opioid painkiller, is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin, with only 2 mg becoming a lethal dose. It is pure white, odorless and flavorless, with a potency strong enough that police and first responders helping overdose victims have themselves overdosed by simply touching or inhaling a small amount. As a result, the DEA has recommended that officers not field test drugs if fentanyl is suspected, but instead collect and send samples to a laboratory for analysis. Over a two year period, close to $800 million worth of fentanyl pills were illegally sold online to the U.S. by Chinese distributors. The drug is usually manufactured in China, then shipped to Mexico where it is processed and packaged, which is then smuggled into the U.S. by drug cartels. As overdose deaths involving heroin more than quadrupled since 2010, what was a slow stream of illicit fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, is now a flood, with the amount of the powerful drug seized by law enforcement increasing dramatically. America is awash in opioids; urgent action is critical. Those taking fentanyl-laced heroin are more likely to overdose because they do not know they also are ingesting the more powerful drug. The most high-profile death involving an accidental overdose of fentanyl was singer Prince. According to the DEA, one kg of fentanyl can be bought in China for $3,000 to $5,000, and then smuggled into the United States by mail or Mexican drug cartels to generate over $1.5 million in revenue. The profitability of this drug has led dealers to adulterate other drugs with fentanyl without the knowledge of the drug user.

Many are now looking a Congress to secure more money to deal with this crisis. Experts urged Trump to use powers under the Stafford Act to declare a national emergency. States could then gain access to the Federal Disaster Relief Fund – which is used to rebuild areas affected by fires or hurricanes. Trump's declaration merely relies on shifting existing funds, rather than putting up the extra money that state officials say is critical for a comprehensive response to the drug epidemic. Drug overdoses now kill more people than traffic crashes or gun-related deaths. Also, there are fears this epidemic could set off a wave of new HIV/AIDs infections. Many are concerned because Trump’s move means funding will be redirected away from other programs such as those that are set up to prevent HIV, and it’s ironically those affected by the opioid crisis who are most likely to benefit from HIV-prevention initiatives. Trump's pick for drug czar – Tom Marine – withdrew his nomination because he pushed the bill outlined above through that stripped the DEA of its ability to seize suspicious painkiller shipments. He also helped force out a DEA official who was taking on distributors of opiate pills.

Additional funding to address the opioid epidemic has widespread bipartisan support among the electorate. Sixty-nine percent of all registered voters said they support increasing funding to help solve opioid abuse, while 17 percent said they oppose additional money. Broken down by political party, 77 percent of Democrats, as well as 65 percent of independents and Republicans said they support more funding to address opioid abuse. Acting on the opioid epidemic could have been an easy win. It’s an issue that crosses partisan lines, with both Democrats and Republicans angling to do something about it. There’s evidence it’s very relevant to Trump’s own base. The opioid commission released two sets of proposals in 2017. Trump reacted to the first set of preliminary proposals by declaring a public health emergency over the crisis, which was the commission’s top recommendation at the time. But the Trump administration has done very little, at least publicly, about the broader final set of 56 proposals — which generally focused on expanding access to addiction treatment by, for example, streamlining federal funding for drug addiction. Trump announced a vague plan to confront the opioid crisis in March 2018. But instead of taking up the commission’s largely public health-oriented proposals, Trump’s plan focuses largely on harsher criminal justice measures, including a scheme to use the death penalty more often for drug traffickers — which the commission did not recommend. Experts are deeply skeptical that any effort to beef up border security, including Trump’s wall, would do much, if anything, to stop the flow of drugs into the US. Trump’s plan also made some ambiguous promises to encourage fewer opioid painkiller prescriptions and scale up addiction treatment. If you ask experts, they have a fairly good idea of what’s needed to combat the opioid crisis: more treatment (particularly medications like methadone and buprenorphine), more harm reduction (including better access to the opioid overdose antidote naloxone), fewer painkiller prescriptions (while ensuring the drugs are available to those who really need them), and policies that can help address the root cause of addiction (like mental health issues and socioeconomic despair). In his proposals, Trump has also tried to cut the budget for the Office of National Drug Control Policy by 95 percent — a move that his team initially walked back after facing bipartisan opposition during last year’s budget talks but reportedly may try again this year. And the administration supported the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which experts credit with expanding access to addiction treatment.