Overprescribing and overmarketing?
Seems pretty simple to me. I think pharma, and now politicians, see a cash cow. Theyâre just cynically fighting over whoâs going to pay, both knowing full well itâll ultimately be our money.
Drugmakers and distributors argue that it would be wrong to tax prescription drugs, that the cost increases would eventually be absorbed by patients or taxpayers
So big pharma is going to play stupid on another revenue income that will be paid by consumers to pay for the bribes. While lawmakers get another extra raise so they can play with the numbers headed toward any addiction program.
Reminds me of the âjust say noâ drug solution that never caught on. All this money and no accountability as to where it disappeared to.
Tell me Iâm wrong if I am please.
I can understand why they are opposed to a tax on their drugs. They are already at a competitive disadvantage to heroin. Seriously I donât have any love for the drug companies. It is often hard to tell the difference between them and street pushers.
All this does is pass the cost on to patients who really need the painkillers after surgery.
In the United States drug business price gouging is legal and a common practice. Addicting a large number of Americans was a predictable if not planned result. Register addicts and provide them with free drugs until they can get rehabilitation.
Kratom is super cheap ($100 a kilo) and is very effective for weaning people off an opioid addiction. Of course, the DEA is currently working to make it illegal.
Just curious, but does anyone know if that figure represents only opioid/painkiller deaths or also includes heroin-related deaths. Seems like the folks with children who died from ODs were heroin-related. Does it matter? For me it seems like heroin addiction and related deaths are as as old as time. No one appears to have figured out how to effectively help these people- I mean developing treatments that could work for most everyone. What makes them think that extracting money from Pharma is going to do a thing for anyone? As someone previously mentioned, it sounds like a primo opportunity to line their pockets.
They want to keep opiates legal and tax them, but not marijuana? Probably a much safer drug and also effective for pain relief. Unfortunately, itâll probably involve the corporatization of marijuana to make it legal on a federal level. Bribes must be paid, after all.
The DEA is unfortunately codependent with the drug dealing industry. They naturally protect their livelihood by encouraging the problems they were supposed to end.
Exactly.
Why fix a problem that isnât a problem for Big Pharma?
EDIT: I began taking Kratom a year and a half ago because of a condition in my feet (Mortonâs Neuroma) which threatened my ability to walk without severe pain. I take it 3 or 4 days a week when the pain becomes too much and it eliminates it and also puts me in a fantastic mood! Even though âtheyâ say itâs physically addictive, Iâm not even close to being addicted.
How about they get to reduce their tax bill by putting in place measures to make sure their products arenât overprescribed and arenât diverted to the black market?
Seriously, this is a bad idea, but probably not as bad as the status quo.
âYouâre creating the problem,â he said. âYouâre going to fix it.â
Said no one for Gun manufacturers. Looks like Opiod lobby needs to work with NRA to get this done.
Looking forward to a world in which addiction treatment is as routine as treating diabetes or cardiac arrest?
Diabetes is incurable, but can be managed, although life expectancy is still shortened. Drug addiction can also be managed by providing the drug or an addictive substitute, but I doubt this is whatâs being imagined.
The survival rate from cardiac arrest is 10.6%, or 8.3% with âgood neurologic functionâ, according to the AHA report of 2015.
Has anyone modeled the probable effects of taxes like this? One of the stories is that when the epidemic was getting started, people switched from (well-manufactured) pharmaceutical opioids to (dangerous) fentanyl-laced street drugs because of the cost differential and ease of access. How will the new taxes change that situation?
On the face ot it, this move looks like âdo-somethingâ flailing, with the possibility of significant cash flow to attract predators. Iâd like to hear otherwise, but whereâs the analysis?
Wonderful âŚ
create a fund to help people âŚwatch it grow âŚ
Then watch it rolled into a general fund the minute lawmakers need money to address anything else they havenât funded ⌠They rob peter to pay paul sure as the sun rises âŚ
Better lawyers.
LikeâŚexactly.
Remember that little fund ⌠social security ? âŚ
And TV commercials.
From the article:
[quote]Opioids include prescription painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin
as well as illegal drugs such as heroin and illicit versions of fentanyl.[/quote]
No, and I get tired of journalists and politicians mixing up these two categories:
Opiates are drugs made from opium, the juice of the poppy flower, such as morphine and heroin.
Opioids are drugs synthesized to mimic the chemical structures of opiates, such as oxycodone and fentanyl.
Media reports often confuse the categories and publicize numbers for one group that actually apply to the other, or to both groups combined.
Traditionally most overdoses were from opiates, either in military field hospitals (where medics had to do what they could when faced with traumatic damage from shootings and explosions) or in street use (where purity and dosage volume were inconsistent and unverifiable).
But, @eisenst, in recent years there are many overdose deaths from legitimate opioids where people with high tolerance didnât get relief and took too many pills. And there are many overdose deaths from illegitimate pills that contained fentanyl or other extremely strong drugs mislabeled as legitimate opiates or opioids.